Peak Color in the Back Woods

There are still a few trees holding on to their green.  But by the time they turn color most other trees will have dropped.  There are also several bare trees in the woods even now.

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Rustling Autumn Leaves

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Woods     Forest     Deep

Moving fast quiet

Instinct to survive

Running through understory

Hidden from above

Alone fighting selection

Must be superior

Combat the environment

Self and nature

Claw     Bite     Flee

Day to day

Granted ever nothing

Nothing ever given

Get through today

Live for tomorrow

Eat     Seek     Breed

Not just inches

Take only yards

Never question why

Accept only how

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Standing on a Block

Standing
Standing still
Still in the forest
In the forest looking down
Down at my feet
At my feet feathers
Feathers from a hawk
Primaries, tail, many
Many feathers beside a Beech tree
A Beech tree with a hole
A hole filled with the remains
Remains of a Red-Shouldered Hawk
Kneeling
Kneeling near a different tree
A different tree with another hole
A hole in the base
The base filled with leaves
Leaves covered in blood
Blood dripping
Dripping from higher inside the tree
The Owls tree

Hidden Paintings in the Night

∞

Anointed by droplets
Just after rainfall
While passing through a woods
Blackened by the early morning
Too recently roused from slumber
I am onto the habitual errand
Approaching the river
To cross the trestle bridge
Illuminated by its lone
Sodium arc lamp

Drip
AWAKE

Drop
AWARE

Time Stops
I am halted
By a gift on the trail
And still the trees
Anoint me with water
As I look toward the bridge
I see the light
Shining back at me
Through the trees
Just after rainfall
A million black silhouetted leaves
Laced in a billion diamond drops
Scintillating in gold from the lone
Sodium arc lamp
All I hear is the passing river
And leaf drops kissing the ground
Drops that channel down my brow
As I stand beholden to grace
While breathing the morning air
God so recently exhaled
When making on this ground
A Shrine to the Night

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Leaves

Alone atop my Tree

The Moonlight and I

The arms that hold me

Monolith to the Sky

-Worship-

My color stripped

All friends gone

My swan song

Fall

-Farewell-