The Forest is His Living Room
for Richard Allen, Man of Maine
The Maine woods.
The coastal woods.
Where coming into Spring
he resides, is at home.
Where he keeps a fire burning
by his old canned-ham camper.
Where daily and stewardly
he removes the snaking vines
strangling the trees;
to reuse them, rework them
by sculpting them
into life-size horses.
Stallions and mares,
maybe the odd moose;
that’ll gather and pasture
together in the nearby field.
Here in his arboreal
living room, a living space
Thoreau and Muir would enjoy;
would smile upon
across their own
well-timbered time.
Colin Goedecke
Westerly-by-the-Sea, Rhode Island
March 2023
