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Walking in the alley of trees

Copyright © 1991

Nic Bernstein

Walking in the alley of trees

Two lanes of ash

flanked by pines

define for me a spiritual place

as I walk through them

I feel a cleansing

a purification of the mind

All around me are the eyes of the wild

watching and waiting

to see what I will do next

with a great noise

they take to the air

remind me that I am not alone

Back and forth I walk

and feel the weight lift away

slowly, steadily, lighter and lighter

Gradually, the crunch of snow under my feet

fades to silence

and my body pivots from side to side

slipping between the branches

I am silent now

as I slowly drift upward

to fly with the grouse and pheasant

Below me I see a man

standing in a field

with his arms before him

as though he were holding a wounded child

As I approach

he lets loose a scream

deep from the gut

It's echo rattles me

He cries for memories lost

wiped from the face of the earth

as though his past had never existed

"The land remembers,

the land will never forget"

I tell him

As I hold him,

he sobs on my shoulder

I don't think that the land's memory

is enough for him now.