Heat Advisory Amidst Pandemic

Heat Advisory Amidst Pandemic

You shouldn’t go out today –
stay home and hydrate!
My daughter’s texted warning
echoes my own good sense:
Only mad dogs and Englishmen
go out in the mid-day sun.

And yet I crave my forest fix
my walk past laughing gardens
into the wooded park
under a glass clear sky.

The months of social distancing
have left me strangely dulled,
devoid of motivation.
Thrown back upon myself
I’m forced to inner contemplation
to find what’s at my core.

Looking for wisdom,
longing for joy –
intensity of feeling 
a ghost now in my memory,
I muster all my senses.

A welcome tender breeze
caresses neck and shoulders
so long so bare of touch.

My eyes lift skyward 
drink in translucent blue, 
fringed round the edges 
by softly swaying green:
The canopy above,
where sharply structured branches 
yield patterns, subtly shifting
in shadow and the sun.
Dizzying, dense – and etched into my brain. 

Breathing deeply 
the scents all around –
the fragrance of pine, 
the hint of dry grass –
I feel almost giddy
and lean against a boulder
to quickly find my balance.

I strain my ears and hear
the sound of insects 
humming as they work
a patchwork field of vibrant weeds 
nobly crowned in Queen Anne’s lace. 
And suddenly too the high-pitched whine –
cicadas at noon!

Winding paths beckon
in dappled sunlight;
they call me to follow, 
find magical sites –
my loci amoeni –
where I imagine
fulfillment,
unio mystica,
and reach transcendence.

But curving behind the thick bushes 
the paths disappear. 
They fail to reveal
any promise 
that might lie beyond.

Wild pang of joy, 
you elude me still.
But perhaps I am coming
closer to that bliss:
absorbed, enclosed, enveloped
in the great green surround.

It may just take practice.

                                  © Joey Horsley, 2020