This is a strange glade
I knew it in the moment I entered
Drawn there somehow
Nettles and rough briers snagging my wake
Suddenly fall away
It is soft underfoot
Plush grass sprung from a bed of moss
Like hairs from a scalp
Mushrooms abound, impossibly fragile
Grouped in a crescent
One errant toadstool in my path
Appearing as of painted stone or clay
Is turned to dust
A cloud of spores drifts lazily
Souffle de vie et résurrection
There is a hare, I see, across the glade
It is watching from the undergrowth
Quite unafraid
Quite familiar
The green sun-fretted canopy has receded
And in its place a still blue
The smell of bark and rotting mulch
Has given way to a lingering scent
A hint of human sweat and smoke
The residue of pleasures visceral
The air is warm here
Out of the shade
The birds are quiet
Contemplative and sleepy
Hungover
What happened here?
Whose dancing feet left these imprints?
What timber burnt to leave that ash
So peculiar and discoloured
A blood and ochre hue?
Are those sun-bleached twigs
Nestled ‘neath the ferns
Smooth sharp fragments
Enamel of varied shades
And the curious white stone
In the soil
Round and half-embedded
How came it there?
Rapture and delight
Echo in the circle of trees
Or seem to
Muffled drums beat far away
Or seem to
Screams tear at the pall of quietude
Or seem to
What happened here?
I take a backward step
And find I have stepped into a footprint
I am cosily enfolded
The warmth is oppressive now
I long for the shadows of the forest
My fingertips, my palms, are dusty
How came it there?
A silver dust
A blood and ochre hue