One last try REVISION of DO YOU HEAR THEM? for Thursday May 9 2024 Jill
jill stockinger
Jill Stockinger
Do You Hear Them?
I go to the woods to escape the faces
of those dying a little more each day.
They're striving to live, but they're losing daily
in the smoke and grind of the cold, gray city.
Here, in the woods, I call on my muse;
in this verdant space, I write poetry.
These woods are filled with fairies,
dwarves and elves, strange creatures
quick to anger and slow to forgive.
They are known to give gifts
to the lost and unwary, gifts that may
prove bitter or achingly sweet.
These woods are filled with branches
outstretched with the great truth of trees,
homes to dryads who try to protect them
with their wiles and charms and with nymphs
peering shyly through fluttering sighs
and whispers of green and gold leaves.
Their graceful sisters, the naiads, swim
and laze in blue streams brimming
with tadpoles; they tumble and play
with the sleek darting fish. Spirits
like these live in every flower, inside
every swelled mushroom, in every stone.
These magical beings have veins that glow
with cold green or blue ichor or rich
yellow sap, so unlike hot human blood.
Wise to be wary, they hide from us.
Still and waiting, they hold their breath
as we disturb their peace.
My syllables of poetry will never be
as powerful as the invisible wind
that dances with these magical spirits,
that sweeps with laughter through the trees,
that lifts me lightly out of myself
and cradles me in a green revery.
And my simple words will never
ward off the hands of men who fell
the trees, unaware that the doom of one
is tied to the other, that the continual
cascade of the deaths of forests
is tied to their own doom.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org › dictionary › cascade
Cascade: to fall quickly and in large amounts: Coins cascade from/out of the fruit machine.