My poem: The forest floor: gen
Jan. 11th, 2024 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stonepicnicking_okapiTitle: The forest floor
Rating: Gen
Length: 200
Inspired by: This photo of a forest [Sigmaringen, Germany] and this a variation on this prompt: Take a piece of dialogue you’ve written and add something from each of the five senses of the POV character to it: Taste, Smell, Touch, Hearing, Sight.
The forest floor by okapi
“Come.”
The misty forest beckons quietly.
“Leave the path behind. Come closer.”
The woodland scene whispers invitingly.
“Look.”
The background is a muted, muting blue
interrupted by black columns of trees.
Somewhere, somehow, light penetrates the fog,
allowing rich dark green and russet brown
to be seen, wondered at, delighted in.
“Listen.”
The ferns are silent. Moss does not speak.
But somewhere, something snaps a twig, then two.
The hiss of air through boughs might be fiction.
A breath. A heartbeat. Observer observed.
“Breathe in.”
The soil, the earth, the dirt, the slow decay,
The day-old rain, the fecund rot, the straw.
These are the scents of growing and dying
without excuse, permission, or regard.
“Open wide.”
A drop of something strikes a startled tongue.
Lips close, throat swallows on instinct. Mouth drinks.
The bitter fungus meat is trapped between teeth
and chewed. So are the fronds, more dew than leaf.
“Reach out.”
Boot soles scrape against rocks which mark the edge.
Dark beetle-textured bark brushes and snags.
A hand plunges in the curtain of fern.
Fingers find a grab-bag of something damp.
“Don’t be afraid. Come closer. What is seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched…
…is only the beginning.”
Rating: Gen
Length: 200
Inspired by: This photo of a forest [Sigmaringen, Germany] and this a variation on this prompt: Take a piece of dialogue you’ve written and add something from each of the five senses of the POV character to it: Taste, Smell, Touch, Hearing, Sight.
The forest floor by okapi
“Come.”
The misty forest beckons quietly.
“Leave the path behind. Come closer.”
The woodland scene whispers invitingly.
“Look.”
The background is a muted, muting blue
interrupted by black columns of trees.
Somewhere, somehow, light penetrates the fog,
allowing rich dark green and russet brown
to be seen, wondered at, delighted in.
“Listen.”
The ferns are silent. Moss does not speak.
But somewhere, something snaps a twig, then two.
The hiss of air through boughs might be fiction.
A breath. A heartbeat. Observer observed.
“Breathe in.”
The soil, the earth, the dirt, the slow decay,
The day-old rain, the fecund rot, the straw.
These are the scents of growing and dying
without excuse, permission, or regard.
“Open wide.”
A drop of something strikes a startled tongue.
Lips close, throat swallows on instinct. Mouth drinks.
The bitter fungus meat is trapped between teeth
and chewed. So are the fronds, more dew than leaf.
“Reach out.”
Boot soles scrape against rocks which mark the edge.
Dark beetle-textured bark brushes and snags.
A hand plunges in the curtain of fern.
Fingers find a grab-bag of something damp.
“Don’t be afraid. Come closer. What is seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched…
…is only the beginning.”