A prose poem:
Pungent, crinkly oak leaf, once red, decaying with the sweet, straight dry pines, and hard, solid acorns. My heart holds many places tightly within its arteries, latching like spikes onto the memories with its blood-filled avenues and tossing them to the forefront at random, inconvenient times. Just like the heart does. Walking in woods with the sounds seeming so high-up and loud. Blue Jays and crows telling each other to stop and start. Crystal, cool, and clear brooks and their loud fluidity saying to drink me or dip your big toe down to the clean, rippled sand. Being watched, listened to, and my human scents inhaled, evaluated, feared. Dangling tea berries and dangling Lady Slippers and confident, downy dangling doe ears. Rock walls with hunter green moss sit like couches in 1973 and trees, fallen and felled house crunchy bugs and minky-soft rodents and wild canaries. The ups and downs and overs and hops test the thighs and the loud crack behind you tests your jumps. The red squirrel laughs and leaves and the leaves cry under your booted feet. It’s all there, still. It’s all there.
Teresa Forester Adams 