Redwood Forest

 

 

 

 

sought cradle of mist

 

longing of low wet cloud brought sea yield

 

 

 

ghostgreen cobweb        covers bare crystal branches in fog

 

black torn-out trunk holds grey flow

 

 

 

salmon ringed in trees’ lock

 

in wet violet     

 

underneath ferns three-shape      in-sign

 

 

sunfold of green flesh flutter

 

touch trace down lifeways        

 

            skin paths of streamed sun

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

how here           fog brushes       hill’s frond-feeling back

 

still,

 

            gown-grown rife

 

from height                               sucked wrought cloud    drips

 

down                crimped red hair-like bark

                                               

                                                                                    to craw below black

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tree toppled aslant

 

                        beneath, furrowing rilling draws in, ferned,                    

 

lithe, grown in fetlock               of slow-stepping stone

 

frecked spots sight-binding

 

dim stream-shone sun rippling-blinding

 

worn boughs set black sleek

 

glister-mottle of shatter-stones

 

 

green-fair fire-warm caught by creek

                                                                        open under treetopped

 

light let by slope of fall

 

 

let in to this                   lit to sight

 

                                                stilled

 

                                                beset by fleet sunlit

 

 

                        rustles twilit-green fur wall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bay-leaf bright overfalls

held between redwoods’

 light gate

 

 

swarmed into the bright shaft                 gathering body

 

loam gave way             blade sprang wide

 

                                    bay-bend reached                      bade bulk follow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

unknotting red, unholding

 

gnawing on       gnarled eye       sees      something given here    flash by

 

shadow among swirl slow unfurl

 

under that eye’s blink

 

                                    such light                                  streamed in

 

such shapes as like to it             as a body links to

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

how

wading into

 

glassing waters

 

stone-woven

 

leading and warping how seen

how felt those pebbles underfoot

 

here for light rushing in                        

here for light shaping into life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

dapple-bright green       living cloth      

 

let fall softer sun

 

shut shadow

 

 

there red bodies long, long gathering in a ring     sing round a hole in air 

 

light’s memory

 

 

still feeding

 

                                                                                               

           

how will we be sung of

 

how, flashing,   leaving a hole in air