As the rainfall yields to sunshine,
Dappled light pours through the beeches.
The daffodils have had their season;
Now is the time our violets, anemones come forth.
Once again, April’s buds awaken.

‘Tis always the time for the river Dart,
Rolling, singing, sighing, roaring down her waterfalls.
Animals and birds come out to play -
Squirrels scamper up the branches,
Blackbirds brag, trill proudly from tree to tree.

Listen. Is there not magic underfoot and overhead?
The floating symmetry of being –
The theatre of a thousand years –
While these woodlands stand and watch,
Untouched, unseen save by you and I,
Unbowed, witnesses to the past,
Unsullied, witnesses to the future.

All around, these woods grant sanctuary to the traveller,
Protection to the peaceful,
Salvation to the soul,
An ever-changing, yet unchanged tapestry,
Self-stitched, self-created,
That opens the door on a world of its own.

Written in April 2002 after a walk in the woods, on the edge of Dartmoor, Devon, UK