This is called "Rather like a Dream."
"If Wordsworth, a boy, reached out
to touch stone or tree to confirm his own reality, that
wasn't so crazy or even illogical,
for we have all done the same or at least felt the impulse.
Right now, I feel it, for I walk in the mountain woods alone,
hour sunset, season when the first maple leaf falls
red, the first beech leaf gold.
Each leaf, each species, gathers brooding beneath it
its film of darkness and waits.
And the promise of another summer is already a dream.
Thus years, as I stand at this moment,
are gathered in their brooding darkness beneath.
Another summer is now truly a dream,
to join those moments and hours of joy that
dissolve into glitter like tears,
then gather from under a brooding leaf
to join the darkness of conifers not yet snow draped.
I stand on stone and am thinking,
am thinking of what is no more.
Oh, happiness, often unrecognized.
But shade hardens and years are darkening under each leaf.
Old love.
Old folly.
Old evil.
Old anguish.
And the drawstring of darkness draws tighter.
And the monks-hood of darkness grows like a sky overall,
as I stand in the spruce deep where stars never come.
I stand, hands at side, and wonder, wonder,
if I should put a hand out to touch tree or stone just
to know, to know I am real."