Poetry and the forest will converge Saturday as the Friends of the Seminary Hill Natural Area hosts its second poetry walk at the natural area in Centralia.

    The walk begins at 10 a.m. and ends at noon, and is open to anyone with a love of poetry and outdoors who is capable of walking the trails, said organizer David Underwood.

    Underwood will guide participants to stops along the trail where selected readings from poems relative to the forest and outdoors will be read aloud.

    “The first year was easy because it’s all the low-hanging fruit,” Underwood said of selecting poems. “This year I had to dig a little more.”

    Underwood said that there were about 20 participants last year, and this year he has selected twice as many poems. Those who attend are welcome to leave the walk at any time, he said.

    Underwood said finding the poems was anything but difficult, and that he could probably schedule three or four of the walks without repeating a single poem.

    “A lot of guys from that era spent a lot of time in the woods and wrote poems about it,” he said. “Nowadays it’s hard to find that.”

    For additional information telephone Sandy Godsey of the Friends of the Seminary Hill Natural Area at 736-7045.

Forest Poems

Each number denotes a stop along the Seminary Hill Natural Area and the poems selected for that specific stop:

1. “The Melody of Leaves Astir”

Douglas Malloch

2. “Summer Hours”

    Horatio Alger

Excerpts from “The Birch Canoe: a Forest Idyl”

    Rev. Mark Trafton, D.D.

3. “Forest, Give Me of Thy Green”

    Douglas Malloch

“The Call of the Vast”

    Oscar A. Trippet

“A Song of the Woodlands”

    John Critchley Prince

4. Excerpts from “Freedom”

    Archibald Lampman

“Houses”

    Mary Carolyn Davies*

“Town and Country”

    Adapted from E. Nesbit

5. “Maple Talk”

    Lillian Moore**

“To the Leaves”

    Henry Wilson Stratton

“The Life of a Leaf”

    John Rowell Waller

6. “The Fir Tree”

    Edith M. Thomas

“Waiting For a Message”

    Rochelle Mass

“View From Nisqually Hill”

    Naia McClelland*

“Very Tall Trees”

    Laura J. Bobrow

7. “Lost”

    David Wagoner*

“To-Day”

    W.H. Davies

“Siesta”

    Ina Coolbrith

Excerpts from “The Vision of Sir Launfal”

    James Russell Lowell

8. “Voices of the Night”

    Ernest Warburton Shurtleff

“In the Wood”

    Henry Houlding

9. “The Honest Worshiper”

    Charles Wesley Kyle

“The Brotherhood of the Forest”

    Douglas Malloch

“A Sabbath Song”

    Rev. Mark Trafton, D.D.

“Penetralia” Madison Cawein

“June Dance”

    John Drinkwater

10. “A Final Affection”

    Paul Zimmer

“Breath”

    J. Daniel Beaudry

“I Am Ancient”

    Stephanie June Sorréll

“Family Trees”

    Douglas Malloch

11. “The Ivy Green”

    Charles Dickens

“The Song of the Oak”

    G.K. Chesterton

12. “The Forest’s Soul” and

“The Passing Wing”

    Eugene Lee-Hamilton

13. “The Trees”

    Lucy Larcom

“Poet and Peasant”

    Douglas Malloch

* Northwest poet

** Washington state poet