Woodland Clearings Poem by Mark Heathcote

Life is a poisoned pinned brooch in living flesh
It is midnight hour at the stroke of death.
It is a flowering walnut tree.
Maybe it is just the debris of a holm oak, a holly, a green sprig.
Somehow, it is still, bleeding pressed into one palm,
In woodland clearings, clapped together!
Ah, you think you will remain forever a sapling twig in your heart.

But no, it has these bitter black fruit berries
That once was red as dried blood.
Even now, an unfettered unfed spring bird, early springtime
shall not glance for a second at these winter passes.
The brooch on the ground is just a stroke at the midnight hour
It's a long-forgotten flower on a long-dead flowering tree
'Says the atheist, but I say thank God, ' that isn't me.