This bare patch of earth is the promise
of summer’s certain light curtain directed
through a canopy. Messages illuminated
on trunks formed in a circle as carvings
speaking that “You’re safe here.”
In bracken a childhood kite is found,
lost footfalls are almost silent, a whisper
that begins far off and ends in fine hair
combed by the expanse of nature’s returns.
To bathe in the calm for a brief claim,
as the senses draw images on the mind,
silver blue leaving nothing but easy breaths,
vapour trails savour the verges of vowels.
Foot troughs drown in the ground beneath,
where slumber hides acorns of youth to seed.
Generations of trunk rings counted here,
a log rests over another, regains recognition.
Hope exits as a Titan to stride past fears
that are meaningless within the glade shadows.
And I, a woodland creature, left scant with time,
remember to stir when the hour is done.
