Walking Through a Mixed Conifer Forest on a Summer’s Day O earth, let us forever know the smell of the forest floor that embraces first heat of day where sap like honey crystallizes entombing citrus scent and moss unfurls to water and aspens wave their greeting and pine trees whisper stories to the wind and huckleberries seduce bears and thimbleberries surely shelter fairies as cottonwood twirls and tumbles on the breeze and we inhabit our bodies and our feet carry us forward and we walk at the pace of the forest and our minds lilt and drift with the butterfly and our spirits bubble and gurgle with the creek and firs and pines exhale wisdom and being nearby we inhale wisdom and it’s May and fires are a distant thing and the Swainson’s thrush sings and the chipmunk plays hide and seek and the golden mantled squirrel chatters and the deer watches silently at the edge and the fir trees drop their protective caps and the new growth is soft, and ever green and the spider web glints in the morning light and the ants delight in decay and decay smells rich and inviting and the next layer builds on this one as life begins and ends on the forest floor
Elizabeth Domenech is a writer, naturalist, and advocate for conservation and wildness. Her writing can be found published in Montana Naturalist, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, and Pivot and Pause: A Poetry Anthology of Resilience, Remembrance and Compassion (2020). She lives in Bozeman, Montana.
Amethyst Review 