Life teeming with life

How to be silent
           to live within the word
to be still and at peace
           with the world
to want for nothing
           to want nothing
but to be still and silent
           to grow
as within a woodland
           in which life and death
are a constant routine :
           the fungi that feed
on dead timber
           the rich mulch
from the death
           of organic material

High up in the canopy
           one bird calls
patiently to another
           the same song
over and over again
           and as it flies off
its shadow crosses my path
           All ages of this ancient woodland
within one circumscribed space
           life teeming with life and death

Here and there patches
           of wild flowers
primrose and dog’s mercury
           lesser celandine and figwort
all offered unconditionally 
           a lesson in love and beauty

John Lyons