Hidey-Hole

By: Kathy Pippig Harris
Submitted: 2007-01-17 11:25:46
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Away...

From the glow of the city
that lights the belly of the night.
Where the lost ones, and the cars,
and the voices of youth fight.
Where smog and exhaust mingle
with autumn dampened air.
Away from the concrete, steel, and plastic
that the city wears.

When day's light is fading
and the waters of the river slow.
When the air begins to chill
there is a place where you can go.

This place is thickly wooded,
and off the beaten track.
Take the trail into the thicket and
there is no going back...
to what you knew or felt or believed,
for even in denial they are there
in the soil, amid the leaves,
hovering around you in the air....

For herein lies enchantment....
And your footsteps fall so silent
upon the damp, dark earth.
There...do you feel them watching...
waiting...judging your worth?

In the shadows within shadows,
they are whispering, and
their words are like the sigh
of the dusk wind drawing
the blanket
of twilight nigh.

If you do feel their presence....
If you sense their eyes unseen,
then you've gone deeper into the woods
to the world that lies 'tween....
Where mist and grass
and the horizon become one.
When the dead of fall hangs glowing
with the setting of the sun
from the trees, the bushes' pastel foliage,
and glints off the roosting wings
of wild turkeys, crows and hawks
and other flying things.
And there, a sparkle of fire
from an opalescent wing...
of the fey?
Or a glint from the scales
of a darker, darker being?

If you can, and you do...
hear us...can you see?
We are walking beside you, behind you,
perched on the limb
of that old oak tree.
Will you fit into our world?....
Our sanctum sanctorum of myth and lore?
If you will but linger, we will share with you our home.
For this is no memory, the bespelled woods of yore.
They are asking themselves...and asking you....
Care to cavort with faeries, elves, gnomes,
and trolls, or the occasional loup garou?
Did you not know? This private place...our hidey-hole
is your world, too.

As a child you might have even traveled here....
Perhaps you had just forgotten that you could...
until you found this offbeat trail
and stepped into the woods.

***

Copyright © 2002 by Kathy Pippig Harris

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