Field Guide to the Haunted Forest (Haunted Forest Trilogy)

by Jarod K. Anderson

Sit With Me I’m not trying to write a tailored suit. I’m trying to write boot socks, warm from the dryer. There’s an endless autumn in me, scenting my thoughts like campfire smoke. I write for the weather I know.

You are as natural as any postcard landscape and deserve the same love.

What do they name the wilderness of you?

They say cut all the wood you think you will need for the night, then double it. Cut it during the daylight when fuel seems irrelevant. Dead limbs hanging low, sun-dried, hungry for fire. The night can be longer than we expect. The wind can be colder than we predict. The dark beneath the trees is absolute. Gather the fuel. Double it.

Love this

Don’t fear you won’t be good enough. Just be here. Present in this dance between joy and sorrow. The plot is happening now.

love is risk. And, as ever, worth the danger.

Own a share of the virtuous work toward solutions. Don’t burden your worth with global outcomes. The good and the evil are happening concurrently. The choice to focus on the good is itself a way to defy the evil.

These sounds belong to the same unfinished poem as you and your fistful of years like copper coins. It wouldn’t be poetry without you.

Our muscles are prompted to grow by failure, healing from countless micro-injuries. Our minds, science, and technology are similarly nourished by defeat. We are creatures born to thrive on the borderlands of ruin. Home is a valley between saw-toothed peaks of loss. Here we sow failure and harvest miracles.

Things that are perfect are dead things. Empty things.