sketches (march 2011)

"In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery." - Cormac McCarthy

deep enough in the woods
that night
could be found, boys
young and unafraid
turning into trees
huddled in front of the campfire

arms outstretched,
as if to wave into being
a canopy,
they stand irregular
as an adult flits between them
an elder amongst the alders

there were words, then
something to give the fragment
context:
the voice of a father
speaking of snow, or spring
of weather and motion
of something logcabin old
but new as the turning of the seasons

no doubt, the words were lost
on them, as to time
but, in those hunched firelight moments
when, arms resting at sides
they were filled with a temporary wonder
at the world around them
leaning in on their tiny spark of flame,
some deeper seed took hold

and they were
for those crackling seconds
saplings, vines and roots
flowers and mulch
bark, branches, leaves
the sky itself
and could shed their arbutus skin
and be those fragile creatures
we recognize only
in the smoky firepit glow
of a half forgotten memory:
ourselves
at an age when all the woods
were deep,
the caves and moss
hummed of mystery,
when the fire blended
with the stars,
and our fathers spoke to us
out of the dark.