Oak trees mount mossy slopes… graphing the thin-shrub, need not much light.
Fallen comrades stretch out up the valley, their armor soaked with dew-mist and stuck leaves.
Dry foliage rings around their plinth, daubing their place in the social order.
Dark shades cut short, amalgamating a bond between what is and what can be…

Willow wood leans forward, observing last year’s crop… its focus grounded by fleecing strands.
Bunches shivering in the cold wind, undulate neighbors to tripping the light fantastic.
A swaddling creek serves both life and death, kissing the feet of giants above.
The water flows white off the human path, babbling past a lean-to, set on the lea’s bottom.

Flaxen wood guards the gate of Stygian timber, dark as its cousins ‘round.
The house sitting with the wood, dormant in its lot, thinks nothing of the past.
The forest soon to sleep, they Shiloh* amongst themselves… Next to the graves of the first to go.