Going Wodwo*

By Neil Gaiman Shedding my shirt, my book, my coat, my life Leaving them, empty husks and fallen leaves Going in search of food and for a spring Of sweet water.

I'll find a tree as wide as ten fat men Clear water rilling over its gray roots Berries I'll find, and crab apples and nuts, And call it home.

I'll tell the wind my name, and no one else. True madness takes or leaves us in the wood halfway through all our lives. My skin will be my face now.

I must be nuts. Sense left with shoes and house, my guts are cramped. I'll stumble through the green back to my roots, and leaves and thorns and buds, and shiver.

I'll leave the way of words to walk the wood I'll be the forest's man, and greet the sun, And feel the silence blossom on my tongue like language.

*"wodwo" is a medieval man of the wood