Walk With Me - January 2026

• Words and images from my walks and interactions with nature and the environment.

Naked Forest

Wild here

the living and the dead

the standing and the fallen

and the interim

Cold forest

stripped bare

stringy wet ground cover flattened

by the swell and overflow of the river

combed through by the force of the current

Slim spines of trees exposed to the elements

undressed

unburdened from the weighty canopies of summer leaves

and shrouds of dry dead leaves of Autumn

now just delicate spatterings of catkins clinging on here and there

Long meandering branches

searching the unknown

sleeved in velvety green moss

overgrowing in places, and dangling like unravelled knitting

I scan through layers of naked trees

stark and skeletal

branches weaving linear tapestries through the sky

intricate pathways of wooded threads stitching aerial webs

expanding into distant veils of lace

infinitesimal black veins etched into mist

seeking the numinous

Silhouetted

The lungs of the Earth

Vines of Ivy clinging and spiraling

entrapping their tall, bark encrusted columns

mapping and fastening their pathways

tendrils intertwining

creeping

draping

spilling over like unruly hairstyles

Weightless puffs of old man’s beard

cloudy lint scatterings

caught

as if just fallen out of the ether

landing randomly on the dry scaffoldings of their mother shrubs

Still now

fragile decorations

waiting for another wind

I walk through the chaos of nature shedding it’s dead

the aftermath of the storm

the destruction of angry weather

rambling tangles hedging the path like nonsensical cacography

The fallen

haphazardly stacked in disorderly piles

nature’s debris

accidental assemblages

organically sculpted into unstable architectures

As I wander

time has stretched but gone nowhere

I am always here

dwelling in the heart space

noticing my breaths as they come and go

and the stillness between

I weave my way through this jungle of wintery mess

passing by the happenings of all that fell from great heights

driftwood delivered by the flood

soggy leaves and the river's wash-ups knotted together

like burial piles

Wind driven collisions

inconveniently placed along my path

wordless poems composed of all that landed here

locked into matted formations in which to surrender to decay

let time do its work of death and renewal

the return to earth

I tread cautiously

tiny step by tiny step

climbing over

ducking under

falling

recovering

finding support from stable branches, rocks and vines

this landscape of life and loss reflects my inner world back to me

the rugged journey of the heart

weaving through the terrain of slow transformation

shedding layers

seeking a new beginning

from somewhere down under.

In Black and white