HALLOWED GROUND

with only the stillness
to guide me, through the encrusted paths
that were crisscrossed by the years
and the few who made this trek before
they all came, as I have now, to
seek the solace of the lumbering pine
and the secrets they held within

as the early sun cut through
it would lead me further on to find
a cathedral within the woods, once I came upon
it, there were no words to explain, how I felt, it took
my breathe away, I was overcome with emotion as if
being taken over, I could only imagine, what others
might have felt  as they too would have reflected on
what they had seen, if only to accept the majesty of
age and repose, for in -these years it took to create
what laid before, and for those seeking to find, this
was a place of hallowed ground

by Michael Perry