Wherein I Ponder the Nature of Place and the Place of Nature + Interview

Poem by Gurupreet Khalsa

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And this our life exempt from public haunt

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

— William Shakespeare, As You Like It, II, i, 15-17

Trivial moments memorialized nowhere
except in my mind: a silent acknowledgement:
this is nice, no deep metaphors for existence,
no epiphany; no poem spurts out untethered
from the mottled bark of oaks,
where a tiny frog, exactly mottled as the tree,
looks at me with calm suspicion.
 
No paraphrases of wind’s language,
no minute messengers in ripples of water
against shore grasses. At this moment
trees stand tall without swaying
or bending in hurricane gust,
this a day to be forgotten in years ahead.
 
Piercing shine of bronze cypress needles
caught in low winter sun,
a few red maple leaves floating
upon the water, grass hunkered,
waiting for spring rains to leap skyward.
Nothing in this scene remarkable,
yet a profligate beauty, incandescent eyeglow,
each of its moments describes.