4. WHO/WHAT/WHERE/WHEN/WHY by Lee Nelson

WHO/WHAT/WHERE/WHEN/WHY

Come in company
come alone
by day by night in sun in rain  

Bring torches and by dark re-find
re-travel routes by daytime known  

The jeans-of-green¹ suit every season
pick a pair and haul them on
come any day you’re free to come  

A day off sick – we walk the green
A day too much – we walk the green
A day alone – you walk the green
A day all’s lost – you walk the green
A day of sadness – walk the green
A day of joy – walk it again  

The trees will bend to every mood
Between earth and sky you can be nude
in feeling,
fury
rage or song
In loss,
loneliness
right
wrong -
the hill hears one as it hears all  

It’s here to hold up human foot
here to hear what words you’ve got
to whisper, scream, to sing to shout  

There’s room for all, there’s room to spare
to amplify joy
absorb despair  

An outdoor space for all that’s in
each human vessel –
toe to chin
to domed bone-vault that curves beneath
the sky above that curves the same
as curves below eye and soul and heart
all filled with commerce, music, art
or care and worry or with naught
with things heartfelt, with things head-thought  

So, bring them all, the bones they ride
out here - no way, no need to hide -
for tree and rabbit, stream and hill
look just the same on good or ill
as it shines or festers in human will          




¹In folk-song, to ‘wear the gown of green’ can mean to ‘get a bit frisky in the outdoors’ . . . While this poem does not in any way promote or encourage such practices it does at least admit their possibility and suggests that a well-fitting jean of green might be a wiser choice for such outdoorsiness for the modern-casual wanderer