Swimming the Forest

It’s a complex game, you know,
but a game nonetheless,
walking through these woods,
sensing souls more or less.

Stepping on a dry twig or two
and tripping over their sound,
I wish I could hear the entire tree
before I fall to the ground.

They are beautiful, you see,
right up until first frost,
when they plot to keep secrets
as if they might be lost.

Perhaps if I came more often
and I lingered long enough,
I could merge before the fall
and elude their cold rebuff.

I’m told that it will happen
when I accept the snow,
that there’s magic in a forest,
in case I didn’t know.

But what if I’m a whale,
not meant to parley with trees?
What if there is more magic
in the sorrows of the seas?

© 2008 Marcy Stoeckel