I enter the woods
with a shotgun and a Bible,
obviously searching for something.
My focus splits. I tighten my grip,
scan the trees, step carefully,
accidentally swallow some spider webs.
You can't watch where you're going
and study the canopy
at the same time.
Remember, you look for movement,
not for shapes.
When I'm exhausted from walking,
I will hang my backpack on a broken limb,
remove a thermos and my Bible,
thumb for notable guidance:
words that live on,
advice that isn't just useful,
but can also be remembered.
Conifers offer clues,
familiar smells, bladed arrows that point in all directions.
Rabbit scat melts the snow, but only a little.
In the spring, good luck seeing anything.
Some stories can't hold their own potential.
These woods end at the prairie's edge.
The prophets, their locust-flavored tongues
speak in a different time. What does one even do
with the final chapter of Ezra?
I hide His word in my bag, and keep walking,
warm from hot coffee and big ideas
on observance, how tradition
seeps from the ground,
strengthens the forest floor,
all foundations worth building upon.
I've never hit a bag limit,
but I suppose an empty cooler
will always have room, and somewhere
a moral is being determined.
The right page is just waiting to be flipped.
I'm one mouthful of cobwebs
from learning where to look.