RAINFOREST WALK

RAINFOREST WALK

Like a sudden passing
through an unseen border,
entering the shadow of the forest is.
Like a sudden diving
beneath the surface of the sea, unexpectedly
the bright light of the day has gone
and it is cool and less illumined.

The sun just glances through a topmost green
and filtering through
its pale light seems to grow green too.

Beneath our feet there is no grass,
the forest floor is spread with brown leaf mould;
the moistness of the air
mixes with its mustiness,
distilling a living ambience
of venerable timelessness.

Pale stems stand straight on every side,
and ferns uncoil huge, spiralled leaves,
and moss has crept upon each stone
within this cool, damp wood of dusk-soft gloom.


Smooth trunks of giant fig trees
branch somewhere in invisible heights.
Roots burrow through the watered earth,
and silence resonates softly to
the "oom.....oom" of white-headed pigeons.

We follow red markers on stems and branches
till, scrambling over the last, few boulders,
we suddenly find the day again.

For there the canopy is broken
above a rock pool's rippling circle;
cathedral-like, a basalt cliff
soars, massive for a hundred feet;
and down this break a cool wind blows,
and from its top cold water flows
and leaps to fall, to veil the rock,
in dizzying and downward streams,
and mist the air and catch the wind.

And I was glad to have the privilege of life:
to be and see cascading, holy water
in the altar by the mountainside.