4 stately oaks leaning together,
Their branches entwined.
The lovely woods,
A perfection of blue and green.
Blue smoke rising,
A vanishing feather,
Rippling in and out of focus
Like liquidFrom the charcoal cutters' furnace
Miles away, further into the forest.
Blue light reflecting from the blade
Of a particular axe
As it is carried
Along a particular path
In the bright sunshine
Anticipating the yellow gape
Of the wounded trunk
Against the blueness of the bark,
Clotted tears of resin,
And the subsequent silence.
Elsewhere, cold water
Rinses purple blood
From the carcass
Of a deer
And the night wind
Is still howling
Through darker avenues
Shaking the thickets
Whirling towards
A lonely clearing
Where, losing impetus,
It barely moves
The dangling, stockinged foot,
White silk dappled with shadows,
The lovely woods.