Ode to Damp Forests

A jagged twig scraped the softness of my ear

And I bolted into a run

Past the pavement and the houses

The canary yellow wood

And dripping, pungent flowers

Cracked sidewalks buckled

Curving downward and then sloping up again

Up into a low valley and hillside

Where streams ticked away the hours

And dogs lay panting

Children on bicycles spun their back wheels

And the sun flared orange behind a great canopy

I trudged through dampness and sodden earth

Even my fingertips felt saturated

My breath swollen in my mouth, leaking out puffs of Marin County

Like tendrils of smoke in the night air

A lock of hair fell, wet and clinging

Flat against my cheek

I can leave it there, stinging

And think instead about the belly beneath my feet

That belly of the earth that can swallow me whole

Like Jonah

Swallowed whole without a thought

And then tossed up and out elsewhere

Elsewhere I stand planted

Like so many nascent bulbs pushing through spring’s topsoil

Fine, delicate, yellow, perseverant

Here is my re-birth, then

From the bowels of the damp forest floor