Walking in waist to shoulder
Frost crowned grass standing
Silent, still, and stiff
the first to thaw and dry
in the weak late year sun
A forest within the forest
On a frozen November morning

Hard rutted truck tracks,
Tread design clearly visible
Like dinosaur footprints
Serve as finely fossilized
records Of slick rain soaked
early fall firewood collection
In solid loam of rocky clay

Raspberry red arch bridges
hang white leafed, berryless
between islands of brown
fronds from large ostrich ferns
contrasted against the last green
grasses that refuse to go dormant
denying the approach of winter.

A large group of beastly birds
roost in a leaveless cottonwood
raise a ruckus as I approach
and cast doubt who is more alarmed
as my heart catches in throat
they wing down and away from me
gobbling loud in the cold quiet.

Trees awaken and start popping
warming long night numbed limbs
as squirrels begin chattering
and checking hidden caches quickly
furtively eyeing me walking past
sizing me up a scaveneger or predator
preying upon thier quiet natural lives.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not sure about the ending on this one….I feel like it seems rushed. It was my intention to just describe the scene…and let you get what you can from it…then I thought maybe I should add some ‘zinger’ at the end…not sure I like doing zingers. I kind of like writing poems that just leave a moment in someone’s mind…an image, thought, feeling, what-have-you…nothing deep or heady, other than what you come up with yourself as the reader — a sort of impressionist poetry if you will.

So you all might see a re-write of this after the A to Z Challenge is done…:)

Enjoy.