Dave Matthews Poem: Forest

Forest by Dave Matthews

How would I explain a forest to

Someone who has never been in one

The trees and the wind thru them,

The birds and their songs and

Their acrobatic flight about the branches.

The smell of the last time and

The time before and the time before

That, that I was in the woods. The

Sound and the silence. The peace

And the crunch of the leaves and their branches

on the snow. The sound of a stream or

A woodpecker or a squirrel disappearing.

And the trees reaching up and up

And up to gather the sun and turn

Light to air. To jigsaw the moonlit winter

Sky. The trees like a fortress for the natural

World. What if I could not take my

Children for a walk in the woods.