David Wagoner's "Lost"

So I spend too long on that entry, far longer than I should have, and then I look at the timestamp with horror and realize that I’m probably going to be a couple of minutes late for work. No big deal—I’m usually early.

But because I was late, I actually got to hear Garrison Keillor reading poetry on The Writer’s Almanac on WLRH. I liked this morning’s selection—and if I hadn’t been running a few minutes late, I wouldn’t have heard it at all:

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
    - David Wagoner, “Lost.”

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