Shelve Wood Poem by John Rickell

The woodland path, a
nave saintly as the church
I see in the valley below,
tripped with pine roots
its ceiling in the heavens
lit by the noon-tide sun
my soul aloft, listening
to the silent trees
no birds to sing.
Do I pray, kneel on moss
while time stands still?
The day has long to go
the world I leave behind
waits my return, let it be so.
This a bliss I seldom meet,
church was never this content
my selfish mood indulged.
Transcepts either side
tempt me to seek, for what?
The trees do not smile, or weep
of that they have no need,
content in every limb,
they wait the woodman's axe
to live transformed as beams
beneath clay tiles or thatch.
And fences for the sheep.

So on this hottest of days
upright to the sky in random lines
they hold me, walking in a dream.
I shall not go to church
its noisy bells unheeded;
perhaps I shall kneel,
a prayer not out of place
moss to bend the knee
I have not sinned today
There is no temptation here
Compline for another day.
Tomorrow is a Monday.
In this green space
my mind a blank,
tripping pine roots
on a woodland path.