Lost Overnight In The Woods Poem by John Beaton

Lost Overnight In The Woods



The horizon garrottes the twilight's throat. I sleepwalk
through slash and over deadfall. My arms, white canes,
antenna me through copses; touching tree-trunks,
legs of huge tenebrios, whose abdomens
are canopies of darkness under elytra,
I walk. Winds whisper mantra after mantra.

Now branches frieze the sky—wrought-iron frost-work
Cistines the darkling beetles' undersides.
I see an Agincourt arrow, a kingfisher, flash-track,
grey, but fletched with blurs of blues and reds,
through ribs of fallen trees that cage a reach
where swans' necks question whether day will break.

A bull-elk rears. His forelegs scissor the moon-rays.
He splashes down, legs thrashing the water, then dips
his head in the glister, raises his rack like a sunrise,
shakes it, smithereening his crown, then grasps
the horizon's rope in his antlers; with a swing and a sling,
throws bolas at darkness's legs and unstrangles the sun.

Monday, December 16, 2019
Topic(s) of this poem: lost,morning,night,woods
POET'S NOTES ABOUT THE POEM
This poem is a composite of three events, each of which, in its own way, felt surreal at the time.

I was fishing a remote Canadian river and didn't leave myself time to get back to my vehicle before dark so I decided to shortcut the route by bushwhacking in a straight line through the forest. I pushed on through a tough area and became stranded among large fallen trees and beaver dams. Darkness fell, pitch-black in the forest, and I had no light. Around midnight I heard running water then regained the river and my car at about 2 am.

I drove to a lake at first light in winter. The water was flat calm and there was a low ground fog. A flock of trumpeter swans was floating there, completely still, only their heads showing above the mist.

I went overnight backpacking by myself in early spring to near the head of an alpine lake in the Rockies. After getting too close for comfort to a grizzly in the night, I struck camp before first light. As the sun rose I saw a bull elk, behaving as in the poem (for the most part, anyway.

This poem has three six-line stanzas, each rhymed ababcc using "slant" or partial rhymes. The lines are pentameter (5 beats) with intermingled two-and three-syllable metrical units or "feet" (e.g. da-da-DA and da-DA) . The meter of the first line is: "the horIZon garrOTTES the TWIlight's THROAT. i SLEEPwalk." Robert Frost frequently used this type of "loose pentameter."
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
S.zaynab Kamoonpuri 13 December 2018

Woah extraordinary impressive diction employed to relate the episode, but I found the imagery, sights and sounds very interesting and poetic the way you describe them. Kudos. pleez do comment/review my newest poem too, titled, Dream Holiday places

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Me Poet Yeps Poet 01 December 2018

your poetry is too technical for an ordinary natural Canadien poet like me but your lonesome adventures intrigue me what nights of loneliness though forests I can see I walked in the jungles of Vietnam stark naked ripped clothes actually so I can imagine your plight and which has resulted in such a delight Hope you will scan some of mine the first top ones moms smiles o Canadien poet

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