“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
― John Muir

The brilliance of the universe can easily be witnessed when looking upon the natural world. We see this omnipresent intelligence entwined in everything. It is alive in the stars, found within the veins of leaves and in the rivers which sustain our lives. It is found among the grasses that weave together our living tapestry.

This blanket of life wraps around us, only to recede along our concrete borders. And even then, life finds a way to move over and beyond anything that we can build.

Where there is room, life will find its way.

But there exists something sacred within us all that is mirrored within our natural world. As light plays along landscapes with the changing colors of a setting sun, we too play along with it.

For we are also of nature, though so many feel they are separate.

I’ve seen the rising and setting of the sun change dull, brown rock into vibrant shades of purple, blue and orange. I’ve watched in the early morning as flower petals open slowly to greet the day, and as deer walk cautiously by, dripping dew from their moistened velvet. My pulse has quickened at the sight of raging rivers and crashing seas, and I have witnessed also the silence that accompanies still water in the immediate afterward.

All these sights found within nature can be witnessed by anyone, but the perspective by which we view them is subjective to one’s own eyes.

It is true, a man can be disgusted by nature just as much as he can be moved by it. We can all be entranced by the birth of a new day, or sad that we must live on for another one. This choice is always at the mercy of the observer.

But there are lyrics within life.

If we choose to see despair, we will become desperate. And in tune, we will hear the song of desperation. If we feel pain or sorrow, we will witness the agony of life in all its facets; and we will play along with painful shrill of life’s worst chords.

No matter the beauty that exists in every moment one can always find the dark poet that lurks within, peering through the blackness and offering his melancholy gloom. But we are our own poets, and we control the stanza. We control the tempo and we make the rhyme. The rhythm is always about us, but it is up to us to write the song.

It is not so much that beautiful poetry exists within nature, but that it is the poetry within our hearts which makes nature so beautiful.

So it goes with poetry.

And, so it goes with life.

We are all poets. We can all choose to be the dark poet, or we can be the light within that darkness. We can all be the calming wind, or the raging storm.

Choose well, and witness the beauty of life.

Witness the beauty of yourself reflected.