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Marsh Trees
Far 'cross grasses green and pink,
Sand bars white and black salt creeks,
Where cloud and flood merge indistinct,
Where 'cross dry land the ocean leaks,
There grows apart a wooded glade,
Where no one goes that I have seen,
To shelter neath its dome of jade,
A shrine where ne'er a pilgrim's been.
Were I but young and standing here
And saw that distant grove of trees
And saw that march hawk circling there,
I'd walk or wade out as I please.
That mile or so of trackless waste —
And not a whit what you might think.
Light callowness I then embraced
And worried not on food or drink.
And in that secret wood might find,
Where last the native bare foot walked,
A painter's scene and poet's mind,
A mystic's dream that spirits talked,
That most singular, rare of earth,
Where grains of time melt in hot breeze,
Where no lined ledger sets the worth,
No builder steals the souls of trees.
John Wertz
Bluffton, SC
2014
Far 'cross grasses green and pink,
Sand bars white and black salt creeks,
Where cloud and flood merge indistinct,
Where 'cross dry land the ocean leaks,
There grows apart a wooded glade,
Where no one goes that I have seen,
To shelter neath its dome of jade,
A shrine where ne'er a pilgrim's been.
Were I but young and standing here
And saw that distant grove of trees
And saw that march hawk circling there,
I'd walk or wade out as I please.
That mile or so of trackless waste —
And not a whit what you might think.
Light callowness I then embraced
And worried not on food or drink.
And in that secret wood might find,
Where last the native bare foot walked,
A painter's scene and poet's mind,
A mystic's dream that spirits talked,
That most singular, rare of earth,
Where grains of time melt in hot breeze,
Where no lined ledger sets the worth,
No builder steals the souls of trees.
John Wertz
Bluffton, SC
2014
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