UNDER HEMLOCK'S REACH

A certain stillness,
A cool, green quietude
Curled and lingered,
Holding, exhaling
Barely perceptible baited breath.
Hemlock forest made murmurs
Of an existence sure,
Of an existence pure.
By a gorge
Magic dreamt a bower;
Draping its mossy counterpane
A cover for dell and fissure
Root and stone,
Seeping, pouring into the forest core
Weaving, spinning
To catch the dreams and soul
Of this place.

My feet wore feathers!
In so dreaming an atmosphere
I walked, God-like,
On air, on water.
Listening, hushed,
A stream spoke
Of frogs and of fairies
Of journeying twigs
And of leaves
Hitchhiking from one riffle
To another.

I observed in silence, these transients
At first lazily
Wending their way
Then bumping granite rock
Decrepit log
Before vanishing!
Claimed by
An eternal waterfall
That snatched the light
As it leapt, to the
Turbulent eddies below.