Winter Forest

It is quiet and slow in the winter forest, at the dawn of this New Year.  Stop and breathe for a moment.  Join me as I walk the Winter Labyrinth; she is wearing her subtle colors and the song of the wind is low, sweet. I pause, reach down and….

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Winter ~ Slow ~ Quiet

 

In winter dawn’s pure

shadowless light

            mountain’s north face

shapes emerge, recede.

Her slow pace stops

she bends

holds in her palm

the smooth

flat hip bone

            last winter’s venison

weathered to a richly

embroidered surface.

 

She sees synaptic deltas

of her mind

reflected in bone’s

fractalline calcium terrain.

Fingertips trace

its ivory in

ever repeating

diminishing

patterns.

She gazes soft, open.

Its infinite living form

refracts outward

visible in forest’s

fine tapestry

            stone, mycelium, bark

 

Her branching

veins, arteries

are reiterated

in bare winter’s

intricate, eloquent limbs

in reindeer moss

etched by crystals of frost

and velvet lichen

grown chocolate brown

on walnut trunk’s

north side.