Will they believe us when we’re gone?
Will they believe how the sun shone
through the green-leaf canopy
that arched like a cathedral ceiling
high above our horizontal eyes?
Will they believe how the light shimmered
on the trembling diamond leaves
of silver birch?
Or how every blade of grass
bristled in the breeze,
while the shadows of the forest
concealed a carnival of life –
life beneath the rocks: –
the slow and squelching subsonic bass layer
of snails and spiders, ants and earwigs
going busily about their business,
unhurried, and unheard.
The bird that sits with darting eye –
unseen among the foliage.
The deer that disappears
at the slightest sniff of fear.
They say there’s badgers round here –
though you rarely see them,
often smell them only,
at this time of year.
And once I saw a moose
break loose in the undergrowth –
it ran into the mystic forest
behind the door of pine and fungi,
where the air smells damp
and the moss is spongy –
they say a fairy lives down there
I wouldn’t know, I couldn’t go.
Got lost on the way back home –
tangled up in spider webs
and phantom paths
that led nowhere –
Stopped and looked around –
the haunting sound
of creaking pines
and cracking wings –
the stillness of the forest air.
I couldn’t find you anywhere,
though you were there,
I swear.