Dryad
I’m young in the woods
with new-hatched insects,
buzzing busy,
and idle hop birds,
indolent and dusty.
I can see child hands,
pressed on rock, in sand,
digging and wriggling
with worms or gleaming beetles,
palm of night-green leaf crush.
Kneeling to work and study
knobbles under canopy ferns:
my nest, my cave – I live forever
under ancient trees pulling owl pellets
to mouse bones and fur.
There’s never anyone to see
the girl with her spine pressed to the bark
cleft of giant finger roots,
she waits in the dapple and drowse
of afternoon wondering about her life.
