Sunday, June 4, 2023

In the Forest, Take Care...

We're doing something a little different today. I'd like to present something I put on Instagram recently. I want to share it here because it might be difficult to see all the pages if you don't have an Instagram account.

A cautionary tale about wandering in the woods.

If you should go walking in the forest, take care not to lose your way.

A crooked game trail dodges around trees and vaults over logs, leading deeper into the woods. It disappears into the underbrush. You try to follow, brushing aside bracken ferns and spindly saplings. The trail is gone. No longer ahead of you, and now no longer behind.

The sunlight flickers as the cottonwoods and the pines knit together overhead. The shadows grow deeper.

The forest is alive, taking shuddered breaths through rustling leaves. It knows you’re here. And it wants you.

You try to return the way you came, but nothing is familiar. These are different trees. You did not walk this way before. You must have gotten turned around. You only took a few steps. How could you get so turned around?

The forest has turned you around. It wants to keep you. To own your bones under tangled roots.

The forest is in you now, as much as you are in it. It digs in, finding purchase in the cracks of you. Every fear, every weakness. It belongs to the forest.

The sun blinks a staccato message through swaying branches. It does not reach you on the forest floor, shrouded in shadows too dark for this time of day.

The wind whispers through creaking tamaracks and calls to you. It calls you home.

If you should go walking in the forest, take care. Dear god, take care.

All photos were taken while I was... wandering in the woods. 

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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousJune 23, 2023 at 2:30 AM

    An interesting piece. Nice photo work as well. 👍

    ReplyDelete

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