The Mountain Forest

The rain barely shifted on the
horizon, mist rises from mountain
slopes, dark clouds hang suspended,
determinedly lodged on the mountain
peaks, comfortable there, resistant
to the dim edge of the sun, anxious to
burn away dark vapour dimming the
day's early summer aspirations.

Hemlock, pine, spruce and fir
present in staid stately array, hung
with mosses and lichens that cling
too to the grey, red, black granite
walls of the gorge down which the
mountain stream storms over the
great boulders the mountain slopes
have shed since time lost its memory.

The robust understory of moose
maple, dogwood and ferns march
in orderly procession up the slopes
under the canopy of a growing
presence of beech and yellow birch.

Old, crumbly and opportunity-rich
trunks gently decaying, do double
duty as nursing logs, with spruce
and hemlock seedlings clinging fast
to their humus-rich surfaces. When
the seedlings become mature enough
to fend for themselves, their nurses
become part of the organic whole.

The air is perfumed with the fragrance
of seasonal blooms, wafted by gentle
breezes. The repeated peal of a
Pileated woodpecker rends the air.
Thrushes sing their welcome of
still-impending rain. Yellow Admirals
flit from ground to graceful, looping
heights, disappearing into the witches'
brew of bright-green tangled leafage.