Breath of the Wild
Raj Mitaliya
When I stand up, I am thirty feet tall,
my head poking through a roof of leaves
Amidst a fortress of wood.
Below me, a sea of broken logs
leads down to a path of finite green.
When I climb down my tree,
the wind blows blades of dewy grass
that dance and brush against my ankles.
In front of me–my stream.
Paw prints fresh on the mud,
a signature from the residents of the forest.
Pebbles and rocks and stones lie on the river bed,
blue-green water trickles down,
reflects the warm sun rays, amplifies
the canopy of green and specks of blue above.
Water striders zip across the surface
to the fish below–angels in heaven.
When the sun rises the orchestra begins.
The blue jays tweet.
The cardinals twit.
The robins yeep.
When the sun meets the horizon, the choir is cued in.
The deer scamper.
The foxes shriek.
The crickets chirp.
The best concert in the world plays.
The artist performing, Mother Nature.
When I lie in my bed two hundred feet away,
I leave my window open
to let the symphony fill my room.
The tranquility lowers my shoulders,
slows my pulse,
numbs my mind. Ten years later,
the harmony of the woods still dulls my senses,
lowers my guard, puts me to sleep.
Raj Mitaliya, writes, “I am a sophomore at Rutgers University New Brunswick. When I first took Professor November’s Intro to Creative Writing class, I registered with the intention of completing one of my core requirements, but I found something deeper. Based on the way my professor taught this class and assignments were given, writing became a lot more fun. I remember that, at the beginning of the semester, I was upset because we were starting off with poems, and I didn’t enjoy creating them at the time, but after our poetry unit was done, I was a little sad that it was over because writing poems was relaxing. This poem was inspired by the beautiful forest in my backyard, which I visit often.”