Quo vadis?
In pools of shade
in flutters of green wings
in columned seclusion
the question:
where are you going?
The hard grey path
inquires.
You do not escape
life questions
in the woods.
Thanks yet again to photographer S.W. Berg.
Quo vadis?
In pools of shade
in flutters of green wings
in columned seclusion
the question:
where are you going?
The hard grey path
inquires.
You do not escape
life questions
in the woods.
Thanks yet again to photographer S.W. Berg.
The deep deep woods
is guarded by
a small small troll
two inches high;
he’ll challenge you
with round round eye
in little hole —
a sly sly spy.
If you would walk
his white white earth,
you pay his toll,
the tax on worth,
not in penny-ante cents
but still still pause
of reverence.
With many thanks to photographer Mary Jo Bassett.
And also thanks to Johnny Gruelle,
who introduced me to the deep deep woods in his Raggedy Ann stories ever so long ago.
If Rumpelstiltskin were just a story
how came these beds of golden glory
how else explain the gilded wrap
for leaf and acorn winter nap?
My eye fixed on the ground
I sought the flowers of spring
then upward raised my lens
to capture sky and wing.
That was when I spotted
this behemoth on the tilt
sending me the message
I’m not so sturdy built.
The towering defunct giant
leaned into slender groove
it didn’t take me long
to decide that I should move.
Footprints
gone mid-stride
unwalked path
life untried
horizons lost
no tomorrow
the right to bear
bloody sorrow.
More thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives.
Whose woods these are
springs right to mind
as writer I admit
I find
I’m compelled to sigh
my muse is smitten
by words I wish
that I had written.
Thanks more to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives.
Balustrade in the woods
wants authenticity
neither built by squirrels
nor grown spontaneously.
Its lines and neat-hewed angles
perhaps herein discordant
but for those of certain age
orthopedically accordant.
More thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives.
something tall and proud
lies felled
death took it
then blade
now knelled
in crackling whisper
as kin mark
their own sure geld
respectfully distant
from remnants
sentinel’d
in tender long shadows
shrouded
farewelled.
More thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives,
Vernon Hill Gallery.
little one
where the water goes
why the path ends
what’s in your tomorrows.