S is for Sister Moon

He tells of that with which he is most familiar.

He tells of Mother Earth and Sister Moon.
His verses speak gently;
Tales of the forest and the wind;
Tales of the lonesome cabin,
And the solitary figure; the observer in the wilderness.
He writes about the wild things and the ancients and the passage of time
And the growing divide between nature and man.

He is the Lonely Lumberjack.

He is perhaps the architect of his own suffering
But aren't we all?

The wisdom and the peace in his poems seem at odds
With the bitterness that slips into his voice.

I wish to know him better
Though there are barriers to his freedom.

Here is one of my favourites:


MAKE IT SO

They are ghosts now
All that is left
Are ghosts
Of memories
Of the hills
And valleys
Thoughts of times past
Recollections that always last

Faithful animals once raced
Over these hills and dales
Dogs, sharp of nose
And tongue
Now their baying is stilled
As if never begun
Others cannot hear their voices yet
Only one is capable of that
One that is now bent and weary
One that has hung up
His hunting hat
Still, when the days are short
And frost is in the air
One person still can hear
The baying of his friends
Over the hills just over there

Those faithful animals that tried so hard to please
Are the ghosts of the past
Of long, long ago
Until that one so bent and weary
Can join them and make it so

- The Lonely Lumberjack