Writer in the Forest by Zakiya Mckenzie
A poem for our centenary project writers in the forest.
Writing in the forest is affirming.
It owes me nothing and didn’t ask me to say these things
but I come with green greetings
This world is for us all, and I must love the spaces I am in
As if my life’s purpose would have lagged and melted to nought
I must go where I can love and am loved there
Into the thicket, transplant me anywhere
The spinning globe around, I have been, and this is how I want to be
The forest is the place, among birch and beam
This land that I own as every part of myself
Yet know I have no ultimate claim to contend
When it wants, it reclaims exactly what it wants
And whether one is into a god, gods or none at all
Mother Nature is constant, in all ways it sustains
It thrashes us too, we complain
Still, the imposition is me and you
It is we who cut back and we who choose
to curb the realness of this place
When this kind of wildness is lost
Uncertainty is what we face
