It is not often he is seen,
Who haunts the virgin wood;
Only when one is miles away in dream,
Sometimes, on looking up, there is a man
Standing at the edge of the trees,
Staring with soft and lonely eyes
Towards the village.
Then with a little gesture that might mean
"Such things are not for me"
He turns and plunges in the forest gloom.
And village people, who are bold
To walk in the harmless glades on the forest fringe,
Have found, sometimes, a bunch of little flowers
That none of them has ever seen before . . . .
They are the sweet white flowers that grow
Only in the depths of the forest, in the gloom,
Where the villagers never go.
Philip Britts, 16 August 1941
Bruderhof Communities wrote:
> TOUCAN
>
> The boy there,
> Standing, staring,
> Staring at the bird--
> Eyes alight, breath held,
> Bare toes gripping the sand,
> Wonder-held.
> The boy there,
> Standing, staring,
> That's my son . . . .
> A sound from me
> And he will turn,
> Dart to me:
> "Daddy, did you see?"
>
> This is believed to be Philip Britts' last poem, written at the end of
> October, or early November, 1948, when he and Simon saw a toucan
> together.
>
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