A Moment in the Forest

[Stephen Whiteside]

A Moment in the Forest

A great length of bark is flapping away in the breeze.
Possums and frogmouths are snoring in hollows in trees.
Under the ground, a fungus is steadily growing.
Up in the canopy, sharp little breezes are blowing.

Snails are silently sliding through soft leafy litter.
Deep in the shadows, there crouches a jittery critter.
Falcons are circling, wings spread, and bursting with joy.
A glider peeps out of a knot-hole. It’s timid and coy.

A lorikeet’s feather drops ever so softly to earth.
Deep in its cavern, a wombat has just given birth.
Out at its edges, a darter looks over a lake.
The sight of a parrot has come to the eye of a snake.

Two eucalypt branches rub with a groan and a creak.
A kingfisher struts with a fat juicy worm in its beak.
Fruit bats hang vertically, wrapped in funereal gowns.
The landscape is mottled with olives and lemons and browns.

A wallaby springs through the bush with its deafening thud.
Tadpoles move fast in a watery pool in the mud.
Currents crash over the rounded old rocks in the stream.
A butterfly perched on a flower is lost in a dream.

© Stephen Whiteside 01.12.2016

[Shelley Hansen]

Hi Stephen

I was trying to think of a word to describe this poem - and (at the risk of sounding like Nigella) I came up with "luscious"!!

It is a little gem - and its simplicity is evidence that we don't always need to feel that we have to "flesh out" our poems with a lot of words. I especially like your alliteration (a favourite tool of mine, too!) and great use of consonance (e.g. litter, jitter, critter). Then there are the "bats in funereal gowns" - such an apt description.

I also like the vivid contrasts - e.g. the last two lines - where the boisterous crashing of stream currents is set beside the tranquillity of a butterfly on a flower.

Love it!

Cheers
Shelley

[Stephen Whiteside]

Thank you, Shelley. You are always amazingly thoughtful and generous with your comments.

[Shelley Hansen]

Thank you Stephen - when the poetry is this good, I don't have to think very hard!!

[David Campbell]

Yep, good stuff, Stephen...very evocative.There's some eucalypt-creaking going on outside my window right now.

David

[Stephen Whiteside]

Thanks, David.