Search This Blog

Wednesday, 7 November 2012

Ashes Are Burning

Fungus

A slow progress through the countryside
Breeze-carried through the air
Whispering, a gentle breath
Infection, invisible and insidious
Creeping, hidden, unseen movement
Bringing disease and certain death 

A tiny fungus, just a spoor
Microscopic, beyond perception
Multiplying, growing quickly
Inside the branches and the leaves
Spreading, covering its victims
A landscape dying, wheezing, sickly 

Trees ailing, falling, humbled
By the contagion in the country
Cut back, thrown upon the fire
A forest with holes in, open to the sky
The ashes slowly die back
And burn fierce upon the pyre
 
Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2012

No comments: