National Poetry Week: The Secret Place

Another poem with structure. This one was completed almost exactly ten years ago (4/23/01) and - like Memories of Waves - is part of the group of poems I refer to as the Learning To Stop poems. Part of what I was after with these poems was a tonality that was calmer, lighter, and more nature-themed (I had moved to the burbs with the trees, big backyard, and Jim's garden only a couple years prior). This group of poems was all finding silence and piece of mind within a relationship after the whirl of single life in the big city.

The Secret Place

The secret place
unfolds like spring flowers
leading me away
footsteps in the wind
dream woven powers

And when people ask,
it's gone without a trace
I never remember
what I was thinking
in the secret place

The morning breeze
feels pale green
and the wet earth
smells of growing things
from a garden unseen

I love you, this world,
and your real embrace
but I fall asleep
to return to you
from the secret place.