Each step is progress
Hard won
A slog through hell
Battered and bruised
Keeping up with myself
Through briars
Through brush
Among tangled trees
Often falling, crawling on hands and knees
Never sure of what comes next
Forever wander
In the endless forest
Odyssey of ice
The northern trails I follow
Call out through the forest, bare branches ring hollow
Timbers littered with standing dead
In the mute season, we all look the same
Dread grey, sleet white, frostbite black
The long path
Some don’t come back
Journey
Flower in the undergrowth, bud closed in perpetual shade
Rare bloom, only seen in a night glade
Meadow hidden, high banks, greenbrier sting
Push through the forest, and there you will find me
Violet petals, set against black
Velvet monarch, my kingdom in the grass
I found myself in a dream
The skies alight with fire
Running through a forest with only one desire
Tired, seeking some respite
A mass of molten rock streaks by, burning with white light
Smiting trees before the landing
Tearing into earth and stone, like a bullet from a handgun
Something knocks me off my feet
The force of the impact scatters birds and beasts
Now the forest burns as the sky does
There’s nothing I can do to escape the violent fires
Explosions break the night
Lost in the trees, running from the light
thInkStains 