Wheeling Away on the Isle of Pines

Savoring what needs saving

Maybe it’s these trouble times we live in, the school shootings, banning of books, women seeking healthcare being threatened with arrest if they cross state lines . . . but more and more I find myself seeking solace in nature, in poetry, in the arts.

The desire to save the world and savor it at the same time may seem at cross-purposes, but they actually go hand-in-hand and nurture each other: savoring what needs saving.

Certain poems I return again and again to tap into a state of mind that I was experiencing while writing them–-often a deep sense of harmony and exhilaration. As if I was a still leaf being carried away by a swiftly moving stream.

The following is such a poem. It was written when we were sailing through the South Pacific and visited the Isle of Pines in Vanuatu.

The island is well-known for its beauty—glassy, turquoise waves spilling onto sand as white as sugar and fine as flour. Walking ashore was like wading through drifts of powdery snow—each step leaving deep footprints.

The island is covered with tall, narrow native pines.

Walking through them I became mesmerized by the sound of wind blowing through the branches, the sun slanting through the leaves, the fragrance of the pine-scented air, the greenness that enveloped me . . . it all flowed together and seemed to take me to a place beyond myself. Later, remembering how I felt and wanting to capture that,  I wrote this poem.

Ile des Pins, Vanuatu

There is a path
green and thin
that wends away
and wheels me in

Rising, falling,
tree by tree,
lanced by light
through sward and leaf

Breathing pines
that breathe in me
like heady wine
flowing, free

Green above
and green below
no in, no out,
no high no low

Winds are water
everywhere
I walk on water,
float on air

Drifting mindless
round the bend
bursting out
bursting in.

The hypnotic rhythm and rhyme help to capture that sense of being swept away, unable to resist. A deep underlying harmony carries me to a point beyond rational thought where the boundaries between self and non-self, this and that, disappear, and something extraordinary just beyond my grasp opens up before me.

Reciting this poem to myself I re-experience that sense of peace and joy and power. Savoring that feeling I’m better able to face what had been troubling me before.

I’ve begun re-reading Aldous Huxley’s The Perennial Philosophy, the first chapter “Thou Art That.” Much to savor there too. More on that later perhaps.