Note From The Woods. The Mushrooms Are Waning

Why have I always felt so safe in the woods
as if it’s an extension of myself
where my body is most at ease

The cold, wet, green smell
the twinkle of birds echoing like tiny glass bells
the snort and hoof of a deer

the dogs chase her for only a moment.

Each little white bud bursts on its own stem to make a whole flower.  The white ones that make cows sick.

The mushrooms are waning, the bright orange leathery petals that grew from the hole high up in the Old Hickory have shriveled to a shadow.

The creek is dry.

The golden white light illuminates the smallest spider web and reaches into the dark hole in the elm, sprouting a late seed.

I wonder, as the seasons change,  if the trees feel the wandering eye of sunlight.

I visit my regular places.

The broken maple,  the giant root ball of the toppled hickory like an amphitheater filled with water.  The  fallen pine that made a cave I once sat in.  Now the earth is packed down as if it is well used without me.

The long hollow bone sculpted with teeth marks on the mossy rock that was there all spring and summer is gone.  Maybe taken to someones burrow to chew on in the winter when the snow is deep and food is scarce.

Again I find myself not paying attention to where I am and am faced with a thick wall of bushes and brambles.

Fate has run ahead without me, but all I ask is… which way…and she comes running back to guide me.