Moss gatherer
my legacy is a green rock
one of the finest in the forest
gentle as an ill face
swelled with pain
Poems on the topic: forest
Poems on the topic “forest” on Poets.by.
Forest fire
an unexpected mouth
fire comes to eat the bark and takes all
with the greatest meekness
and is as thin as ever
after supper
Mountain state (1)
High in the mountains
one hayfield remains uncut.
A doe’s ear twitches.
Bed of the Dry Fork
scored for tic-tac-toe: water fills all
the squares with zero.
Camp at the woods’ edge.
Morning sun brings rhododendrons
into your tent.
Steep banks, big boulders,
pools – everything but otters
in Otter Creek.
At Dolly Sods
when the wind slows down, it’s delicious:
wild azaleas.
When they cut the forest,
Old Harry
Red herrings to breakfast:
boot-heel hole as big as a horse
through the forest, one path
as if through a red regiment.
Old Harry went out to buy a hat
and met the Greyhound,
where I found him vexed
about breaking the Lord’s lock.
Oak woods
winter forest—
the vast iron-work of time called trees
Primates
We turn to the forest
(and other things
worth knowing
by not knowing)
to look our full
at all we fear,
our estate like a bauble
bought with trouble,
mind a pair of compasses
to walk home.
Assignation
In the forest, out
of the way we lay
together, his wife
a pretty woman. And
in the morning, blood
and fleas, me
and not me.
Loose lips sink ships
In the coffee house,
talk is a great wind.
Trees blow down
and we have letters from the forest.
A thousand oaks walk to Brampton
in the news:
they make a good tale, thieves
that rob us of time.
Inside Out
the forest is like a house
emptied by burglars
when i am old i hope
to be this free and open
with fire stolen
from the sun
but where have all
the caterpillars gone
hungry
hungry
long time passing
they’re all in uniform
and dormant now
overwintering as sex machines
hemolymph flooded with glycerol
so ice won’t form
Forestry
morning of soft sun
and old gold
with the distant yelping
of trucks going backwards
the sound of limestone
being ground down
and a silent jay
going from oak to oak
throat pouch filled with acorns
it flies off east
i follow animal paths
into the afternoon
a gray squirrel buries an acorn
under a laurel bush
sees me watching
and digs it up again
End Times
i am not ready for
a light-filled forest
still half aflame
i struggle to recognize it
with thinning hair
comes the chill of loss
i finger a nickel
that slaveowner’s face
riding in my pocket
like i’m lewis and clark
under red and scarlet oaks
the music of falling acorns
tick-tocking but only
at random moments
i clock in at several
caught breaths an hour
Walking Blues
i lug my silence into a blue forest
its lost cloud
loud with jays jeering
at my blue hat
what makes it so high
and lonesome on the map
baptised from below
in the water table
enabling the spirit to speak
in broken oak—
no hoax this glossolalia
a cross-worded puzzle
muzzling all green thoughts
leaf by leaf
grief needs no bait to bite
no hook to hold
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
Or try: