HICKORY HOLLOW

A Poem by Richard Milam

Well... I want people to sit with me in this forest and see what i saw, and enjoy the sites, smells, and sounds that I have, and enjoy as I have.

HICKORY HOLLOW

Perhaps one day I shall walk into the woods and I shall realize I will not be accepted.

But if I walk deeply into the woods and if I am quiet and not threatening, then perhaps I will be tolerated.

Then perhaps if I sit with my back against a fallen log and am quiet I will hear sounds I would not hear if I wasn't quiet.

And if I am still and do not move then perhaps I will be overlooked. Then I may see things I would not see if I wasn't quiet and overlooked.

Then if I am quiet, and still, and overlooked, then perhaps I may see a red squirrel or a chipmunk sitting unaware high up cracking a nut in a tall hickory tree in this little short valley where I sit.

And perhaps if I sit a while longer I will begin to see even more and perhaps a couple of bluejays will perch nearby.

I will move my leg and they will fly to a higher perch to watch me and I will not move again, exept maybe my eyes and they will come back.

And perhaps a bee may fly by and I will hear the buzzing clearly among the silence.

And if I am at peace, perhaps I shall notice the gentle noise a breeze makes as it passes through a pine tree and then the interruption to reality of a car horn in the distance or an airplane high overhead.

But they are gone quickly and I may return to my idleness here in Hickory Hollow.

And if I gaze at the blanket of trees above hiding the sky perhaps I may slowly follow a beam of afternoon sunlight to the ground in this cool welcome relief from the summer sun, seemingly undisturbed forever by anyone in its hiddenness.

The tall trees have created the coolness I feel as my thoughts wander into this cacoon of green with its gently smooth rounded bottom set between two short lovely hills all within my single gaze.

And if I sit quiet and still long enough then perhaps I may see and hear what real peacefulness is.

And if I take the time to close my eyes perhaps I will doze off for a while.

The leaves beneath me have warmed and feel as a warm seat and then when I awaken then I will smell the forests abundance of trees and moss and dried pine needles mingled with hickory and freshness.

If I do not move the woods may be alive with life around me as I awaken and I shall not move until I am satisfied with it all.

And then one day soon I may return to my little place here in the woods of Hickory Hollow to share the world and myself...

Richard Milam