THE SECRETS OF THE WOOD

 The dusk gathers a haze

That blankets the trees

Shielding the truth from the world

So our minds can dance in oblivion

Until the breaking of dawn.

The light prizes the sheets open

The trees shake to guard their eyes

From the ravenous sun

Before all pretense falls away

And their branches are laid bare

For our careless prodding glances.

The secrets of the forest

Gather to feast

Among the darkest of branches

Where they are revealed at the blissful night

When none but the stars watch them

They call the wind

With the silent sweep of their branches

As they carry the orange and purple

Away from the retreating skies

Ushering the darkness to set in.

All the fireflies gather below

To light the pathways for uninvited guests

The crickets chirp

They are the birds of night

The owls have no song within them

They are the remnants of firelight

Stuck at the hollow 

When the sunlight crept in through

The gap in the woods.

They whisper of all the vows

Taken under the shelter of the trees

And all the children who believed

That heaven lay up in their leaves

All the swings that were hung

From their branches

When a being swung away its soul

To and fro the branches

All the times the squirrels scurried

To gather nuts for the coming winter

Only to leave it behind to grace the roots

All the things the undergrowth swallowed

As it promised a road to tired travelers

All the markings left behind

On the barks of ancient wood

To be remainders of history

That settled in the forest instead.

The rain carried down tears

So mighty they worn down

The woods and shaped grooves

And the trees aged with sorrow.

The yellow the sun lights in the sky

Was glorious before it succumbed to moonlight

It paints the leaves at dawn

To remind them 

Of vulnerability.

A thunder cracked a tree in two

Between its wound mosses bled into this earth

Only to shroud it in shame

During spring

When all the green leaves

Danced with glee worshipping its worn trunk

Its branches lay bare

As if it were a hand that died

Before it could reach heaven.

Some drops of dew

Some stray petals 

Still rest on the branches

At the threshold of falling to earth

As if waiting for all the scattered roots

To entwine as one

instead of grappling for nourishment, light and water

To realize they were but 

Wood and dust.