Full Moon Forest

image adapted from: http://thecorner.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/full-moon-oak.jpg


Poetry has been described as a means of making simple topics complicated but as the historian Frederick Lewis Allen noted “Everything is more complicated than it looks to most people.” The following is an attempt to describe a late evening wander in the Forest of Dean last week. Stunningly beautiful!


Full Moon Forest

Glistening pathways
Snake inwards,
Lost islands
Clutter together
Whispering stories
Reflected in the full moon shadow;
Our giant blundering boot-steps
Crush them one by one.

A sudden flash. Not the wind
But a grunting deer outline
And another,
Eagerly pursued by
Out of work sheep dog
White tail framing
Beatific chase.

Then with quiet calm
And eerie restraint
Leafless branches hush.
The moon’s muse
Engraved in black ink
Across narrowing trail.
We sense the command and
Poised spellbound
Watch
As we too
Are painted into crescent portrait.