Sweet Surprise

Sometimes you need
to renege on that alleged
destination, pull over
and park your car beside
a mountain road, dare
to leave the cell phone
and camera in the trunk,
side-step poison oak
and protruding roots as you
slip-slide down
a ravine of fern and rock
shaded by tribes
of towering Redwoods
where, at its bottom
steeped in ribbons
of dark and light,
a singing stream
and stillness beyond
words and maps
can find you.
And thriving amidst
what’s been richly given,
such a friendly silence
held within nature’s wholeness,
you finally find yourself
arriving where you’ve
belonged all along....