How should we live our lives? Do we make time to be alone with ourselves and with nature, to reconnect with freedom and breathe more easily, to make space in our cluttered minds for contemplation, and for a little while, feel at home with all creation? Here are two poems of invitation and a song. Each is a call to step outside the artificial world of our phones and devices, and at least momentarily, feel what it’s like to be authentic again.

I begin with a lovely poem by the contemporary Indian poet, Ruskin Bond, entitled, ‘Come Roam with Me’

‘Come Roam with Me ‘ (Ruskin Bond)

Out of the city and over the hill,
into the spaces where time stands still,
under the tall trees, touching old wood.
taking the way where warriors once stood;
crossing the little bridge, losing my way,
but finding a friendly place where I can stay.
Those were the days, friend, when we
were strong, and strode down the road
to an old-marching song, when the dew
on the grass was fresh every morn, and
we woke to the call of the ring-dove dawn.
The years have gone by, and sometimes I
falter, but still I set out for a stroll or a
saunter, for the wind is as fresh as it was
in my youth, and the peach and the pear
still the sweetest of fruit. So cast away care
and come roam with me, where the grass
is still green and the air is still free.

Next is a poem I wrote a while ago that will appear in the Rising Phoenix Review. It’s called ‘Leave the Crumbs Behind.’

‘Leave the Crumbs Behind’ (Wallace Fong)

If anyone calls me out
to the field of sunflowers,
he will see my feelers up,
and if you show me the
blue mountain range with the
everlasting snow on it,
my heart will skip like rams.
And if you so much as suggest
that we wander through the
high forests where the aspens glow
beside the black oak trees,
I would say, without a moment’s
hesitation, take me there!
Rain or shine, take me there!
Let us leave the crumbs behind
and be suckers for a day.

Finally, a classic Irish song to complement our theme in a piece called Come by the Hills.