Moss Woman

Ekphrastic Poetry

All night her skin erupts,
her face a sphagnum mask.
Puffballs sprout
from her nostrils
acorns from her ears.
Her eyelashes are ferns,
pine needles and twigs poke
from her thicket of wild hair,
dreams snag
like sheep’s wool on her spiky briars.
The darkness lures her in
down muddy bridle paths
to a spinney where
she shelters behind
the thick foliage of herself,
her heart in hiding. Here,
memories rot,
rank as the fetid stench
of fox,
and silent birds roost
in her deep woods.
Behind her mossy hood
she inhales the reek
of solitude,
dreams of ancient
forests:
of what is concealed,
what is wild, mysterious.

Comments

One thought on “Moss Woman

  1. A strange yet beautiful
    ambience,
    souless, yet, inhabited by
    fortitude,
    the images return the
    awareness to nature’s
    ever-present picture,
    the senses and instincts
    now honed for
    the gritty moments
    of what is, and what
    isn’t relevant,
    like the breath of the wind
    passing over a landscape’s
    changing picture;
    at some stage,
    winter will paint a new face
    on the old green shaded one,
    a brief outline
    of the bones beneath the beauty.
    For now, we can
    enjoy the labours of
    the flowers, watch the work
    of the bees in their travels,
    enjoy the richness of
    the now.

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