Where The Lichens Grow Poem by N.K. Trevor

from the collection - Notes to the Passing of Nature
- Ruissalo, Turku December 8,2014

The air is cool, humid and wet
And silence hovers amid the dense face of the spread woods of pine
Even the rocks pushing from beneath the marshy ground
Have a slight feel of it.
Their faces, imbued with an extensive undercoat of pale greyness
Bearing no luster at all;
Except for the peach and white mossy patches of molds and lichens
That draws a dull sketch.
A dull sketch enunciating the magnitude of the sodden ambiance
-
There is hope; though meagre it seems at the berth,
Where the expectant palmettos lay; Young and shy-
Yet still expected to deliver a hankered supply of green beauty
That will liberate the dull imprisoned air…

Perhaps in due time they will unburden,
The ill state of the stale monotony wrapping the woodsy panorama

∞

Now and then you can hear a mass falling of tiny water drops
As they hit the drenched carpet of dried, wet leaves of the woodland bed,
Bringing forth, the distant sound of the diminishing light rain
Each on each, the drops are heard; or is it the sound of pinus trees
Making frail attempts to shake off the clinging water droplets
Stuck on the tip of each branch or leaf?

There is a fallen tree by the sidewalk trail of the vanishing footpath
Lying neath o'er the ground, un-attended;
Its bowled-over shallow roots have but denuded the ground covering it
Revealing the poor layer of rare loam and writhing earth worms beneath it.
Above it, the convection smell of compost loam rises to invade
The passing of the distant fresh air; the ambience is distinct and mystical


It is past the midday hour and time in its unrecognized occurrence
Seems to depart as quickly as it comes - as if unnoticed
By the overwhelmed poet, who ambles ardently about the woodland.

His mind presently occupied by peeling barks of these pine trees
And a longing in his eyes that admires the setup
A sad smile twitches o'er his face from a distance,
Followed by a long hard swallow of shuttering reality
However long the transient atmosphere might stay,
It is a borrowed comfort in a foreign place;
And he is but sitting on a time procured in debt...