A Forest

The night like clouded charcoal scorched, A sea of trees with starlight torched. A night where laws are sound asleep, Anarchic prayers running deep. Alone I hear the wretched screams Of screeching trees... or so it seems. The cries protract into the air, Without a sound they disappear. The shrieks have bartered now anew With sounds of meat and boney chew Discharging from the faithless trees And snarling with my memories. But creatures' gruesome growlings drown. I smell the gunpowder and frown. The waging sounds of war advance In battle stance with gun and lance. The sounds of bleeding men enhanced, The sounds of fate and time and chance, No sooner do they cross the trees Than fade as all their voices freeze. But worse than bombshell sounds occur; The storms, the winds, the thunder stirs. The roars that shake the forest's roots, The flowers, soil, and passion fruits A rainy resonance restocks The grass the air the woods the rocks And washes with its dancing tingle All the sounds that intermingle: A dreaming forest in the night, And trapped within its fanfare fright, It chokes me in its thunder thrill And hangs me in the silence still, And hangs me in the silence still.