There is a woman I know.
She comes from the woods,
the deep forest
that gives my soul depth.
I have known her all my life.
She is sister to my insecurity,
lover to my denial,
and mother to my ability to be complete.
Yet I struggle to understand her want.
She asks to go with me out beyond the trees,
into the open.
I take her by the hand
and walk her deeper into the wood.
You are safe here
Among these trees
I tell her.
Out there
together
It would become,
well complicated.
She claims she belongs there
with me.
I start a fire
it gives off heat.
We sit, she moves close.
I fear her more than any-
One,
cause I have kept her here for so long
protecting her,
or me...
--------------------------
This notion comes from a songwriting exercise I do sometimes. If I have an idea for a song I will sometimes just ignore all the metering and rhyming of the poetry and just do a stream of thought. It may be bullets of all the things the song topic makes me think about or often it is this kind of thing where I visualize myself telling someone the story behind the topic, it is an attempt to explain to my self what I am feeling or thinking.
This song is called "The Woman In The Woods". It is the struggle of the individual (okay me) to find the inner balance between the masculine and the feminine and understand the attributes, positive or negative that each possesses. This song idea has lived with me for over 25 years. I may never sing it but at least I have the exercise and pages of fragments. I'm not worried about the music the forest in my head is full of that. Oh and yes to me a song is a song even before it is done or ever performed. Even if no one ever hears it it has still had an effect upon me.
Jeff with song
