Lost

Nothing to do with the hit tv show, I have come to enjoy this short poem by David Wagoner. My friend and mentor has used this extensively in his leadership training programs.

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying
Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

David Wagoner

I'm not about to interpret the poem for you or anything like that. Once I was a teacher of literature and it's funny how I never ran into David Wagoner. Even though the forest here is nowhere in our tropical country, I get how existence can be expressed as a forest - though for most of us, existence itself is not the seemingly sentient and wise forest in Wagoner's poem.

Nonetheless, the poem comforts me - as difficult it is to truly stand still.