Not Nearly Enough Forest

In the forest of purest things….

Inspiration’s endless progeny.

Poetry’s long hair dangles,

swirls, dizzy from a stream’s

incumbent freedom.

Inventions for which no premise

was ever recorded or filed.

Exergonic.

Given an equal chance at

dismissal or reverence.

An apogee of light radiates

a gnosis through birches,

performs a thousand-hand dance

around basking oak trees.

Under the steep tenor of altitude,

a brook multiplies movements

of un-lauded perfection.

Predation, like love,

rewards exertion with sleep,

limp on a branch.

Not nearly enough forest 

keeps body from spirit here. 

They infuriate each other,

They exchange unrealizable

suggestions of place and emotion

almost possessed.

While under a plain’s open sky,

cluttered like an attic

with human archetypes,

another can’t even hide 

behind thought’s stealth.

And when at last collared

by metrics of conformity,

he dissolves into apologies.