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The forest came to talk to us today

Excerpt from the memoir "North, south, east, west"[Denman Readers and Writers Festival, 2018]

By Laura RodbenPublished 4 days ago Updated 4 days ago 1 min read

The forest came to talk to us today… It was cloudy (It is cloudy)

We were listening, you were telling me:

.

“In cloudy days like this,

everything’s silent…

Just when the clouds are gone,

everything comes back to life again…”

.

Crack, Crack, Crack

[Ravens in the distance]

.

“You see! It’s calling: come, come!”

.

Looking through the window… listening; looking through the window…

And then, once the sound was about to go, this whisper in my head:

.

Balde, nur balde ruhest du auch

.

One tear was dropped… “What’s going on?”

For a moment you left; I had to tell you and looked it up, this last line from Goethe’s poem Über allen Gipfeln.

.

“In the summits, in the tops of the trees… Ruh

Birds are silent in the forest…

Wait, but wait… soon, you’ll be silent too”

.

I told you… what it meant to me (Kundera in my head (auch!!))

.

Your eyes were crystal wet, you were staring at the front, no words… You knew, you understood. You looked back at me with your crystal eyes. I think you kissed me. We knew.

.

“Sorry for being an addict… My time is coming…”

.

A wake-up, a warning call…

We behaved sometimes as if there’s a long time ahead of us,

when there’s none, there is not…

.

(My intellectual thirst was shut down by the existentialist realm…)

.

.

Canada, 2018

PoetryRevealResolutionMemoir

About the Creator

Laura Rodben

Stray globetrotter and words-weaver. I have travelled on a shoestring for many years, stopping every now and then to write down my impressions. Languages have been "doors of perception" that approach the world and dilute/delete borders.

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    Laura RodbenWritten by Laura Rodben

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