One Poem by Rick Hartwell

 

The Line of Woods Beyond

 

There’s a wealth of wonders to be found in the woods

behind our house, beyond an apron of meadow grass.

 

From late Spring into early Fall, the panorama of

narrow forest becomes impenetrable, opaqued by

trembling leaves and pine needles, traversed by the

magical paths known only to the animals who appear

of a sudden from within the trees and vanish in a breath.

 

With the flux and flow of seasons, the gnarled forest

alters in depth-perception as leaves crisp and drop

in chameleon colours exposing a translucence of each

tree trunk and branch, newly identifiable in nakedness

as the marshland beyond the narrow woods is exposed.

 

From late Fall into early Spring, the small herd of deer

can be seen easily as they twist through broken branches,

their Summer paths changed, now blocked with litter of

fallen limbs broken by Winter storms and snow load, cast

down like shed antlers, higgledy-piggledy across old trails.

 

With the ebb and surge of seasons, the bric-a-brac forest,

backlit by setting sun, is green, yellow, red, brown, black;

bass and treble of songbirds, geese and squirrels adjusts by

time of day and calendar; and, the kaleidoscopic raiment of

view commends imagination to mind and balm to the soul.

 

The wealth of the woods bordering our land offers ever-

changing wonders to our days far beyond our counting.

Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school teacher (remember the hormonally-challenged?) who just moved to northern Illinois from southern California (?) with his wife of fifty years, Sally Ann (upon whom he is emotionally, physically, and spiritually dependent), one grown daughter, and ten cats! Like Blake, Emerson, Thoreau, and Merton, he believes that the instant contains eternity.