Fruit Stranger, Still

Tread carefully in the forest, my dear

There are spirits among the trees.

Patient, uneasy, and waiting.

They stay high among the branches or low at the roots;

dancing

With the beginning

         And the end

They whisper sweet things, hurricanes of freedom

Breezes of retribution.

Cold winds howling for revenge.

They’ve made a home in the rings of the forest.

In the moss and the morning dew.

Tales woven in the browning of leaves and the fires that consume them.

Flames dancing under a sky canopied by grief.

Thousand Eyes stares on and on and watches the passing of time.

Do not go into the forest, my dear,

The spirits are hungry.