Feral

When I go to the winter woods

I become a feral thing.

Losing myself in leaf litter and moss, 

the smell of dirt mixed with melting snow.

The rattle of the woodpecker echoes

my beating heart as I shed

all of my humanity.

Until a movement on the path ahead

makes me remember mortal manners.

"How about this mud?" he says

as we pass by each other.

And I want to grasp him

by the shoulders and say 

What about the golden sun filtering

through the wet brown leaves?

Or 

Look how this same snow that

muffles and softens

everything it blankets

can also make our footsteps crackle

loud among the skeletal trees

no matter how soft we try to tread!

I say neither, but merely nod,

and pass him by.

Stepping in the center of the

puddle he avoided.

From the moment the mud touches

my boots, I want to roll in it, 

the coldness, the smell of earth.

Forgetting all human courtesy

until I become something other, 

something wilder,

something real.