Christine Andersen’s poem “Forest Bathing” lusciously invites readers into the slow simple peace of the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku. Defined as making contact with and taking in the atmosphere of the forest, or “forest-bathing”, shinrin-yoku was first identified in 1982 by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries. The lines of Christine’s poem are verdant with green earthy imagery, a balm for these cold winter months.
Forest Bathing
Shinrin-yoku
Forest-bath in Japanese.
The denser the forest,
the deeper the cleansing.
Go slow.
Leave your electronics behind.
Breathe in the aroma of the trees,
their essential wood oils,
the pungent scents of cedar and pine.
Run your hands over bark,
the irregular, intricate designs.
Trace them with your finger to remember.
Taste a pinecone.
Stoop and touch the forest floor,
the rich loam,
fistfuls of golden needles.
Ruffle the ferns like feathers
with the sweep of your hand.
Brush your cheeks against the low-hung leaves,
light, leathery or prickly like holly.
Listen to the roaring canopy when the wind
churns it into a green ocean.
Plunge your face into a butter yellow daffodil
as it leans on its long stem toward the river
rushing over stones as old as mountains.
Raise your hands into the long shadows.
Let the forest stream down your arms
like beads of water in a bathtub so hallowed
drowning will resemble birth.
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen is a retired dyslexia specialist who now spends her time in the Connecticut woods, pen and pad in pocket, hounds at her heels. She is finally living a poet’s life after raising children and tending to the business of work, housekeeping, and extended family. These are good years. Publications include the Comstock, Awakenings, Octillo, Evening Street, and Gyroscope Review, Slab, Her Words, Glimpse, Dash, Ravens Perch, The Dewdrop, among others. She won the 2023 American Writers Review Poetry Contest.
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