CANDY IN THE FOREST

CANDY IN THE FOREST

If you never walked in the forest
after smoking green leaves, or
connected, side by side, friend on
friend, smelling sweet sweat,
soft sweetness of the soil, or rolled
around in high grass, removed
your clothes to swim nude in a
lake, picked dead dandelions for
a friend –

Then you will not dream about it, or pretend to know.

If you never hitch-hiked on a road
where cars seldom traveled, or never
pulled pack your thumb, back to your
fingers, lowered your arm after a
car sped by, but smiled when your
legs tired, smiled when you were
hungry, smiled at nothing but laughed
at everything you heard -

Then, you will not dream about it, or pretend to know.

If you never knew Whitman’s Leaves
of Grass – or focused on what it told
you -

Then, you will not dream about it, or pretend to know.

It wasn’t a piece of candy or a
delicate slice of fudge, or a box in
deeper shades of yellow, with names
of things to come, but a vision, the image of know and still living

Then, you will dream about it, and know.


Nancy Duci Denofio
published in What Brought You Here
by Dystenium page 12-13