Langley Woods

Langley Woods

Peacock ferns Eden-lush
draw us into the dim, cedar-canopied wood.
Uprooted trunks sprawl, branches arc,
snapped limbs leap in frozen pirouettes.
Slim apparitions forever grope, reach, grasp
a menagerie of many appendaged moon monsters
sculpted from dripping filigree
and moss macrame.

Victim of the spell
in mother's warning
If you frown like that
your face will stay that way!
the forest's pose is fixed.

But time has softened the arboreal grimace
muffled the keening of the wind
with hangings of verdant chenille,
knitted blankets, sweaters
hats and gloves of lime angora
for the slumbering
arms, stumps and claws.

c. Violet Nesdoly 2004