Back to Nature Drive by John Grey

Leave the highway, even the road that's 

a turnpike in its dreams. 

Go where the twilight is pointing.

Abandon the car. Let the grass be your guide.

The soft light is beckoning.

The wildflowers are purposely your favorite colors.

Even the shadows are kind with their dark.

The willows, the hemlocks,

these are the neighbors you didn't know you had.

The pasture's as friendly as its broken fences.

The river bubbles with its happiness, with yours.

The mallards will not harm you.

Moorhens glide by with such grace.

Even the deer nibbling tufts at forest's edge,

forgo their apprehension

for a conference on the most tender shoots,

the dainty eye-delights of a fawn's speckled body.

Really, the wildlife eats from your heart.

The foliage blooms out of your head.

Everything around you is everything in you.

Your body's the earth with a face.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, South Carolina Review, Gargoyle and Big Muddy Review with work upcoming in Louisiana Review, Cape Rock and Spoon River Poetry Review.