Hiking McClosky Road

The road turns uphill    crowded
by maple and ash. Conifers long ago
logged out; the undergrowth thick
with fern and saplings. The
filtering sun transparents the green
of trembling aspen and a great beech

its bark the colour of elephants
whispers memory of forest giants.
An elm copse hosts a woodpecker
             thrumming a meal.
Wild orchids glow back shades of
the sun amidst time-riven boulders

broadloomed with lichen. The first
leaf offerings of fall lie cupping
last night's rain and we hike past
    a beaverpond, its waters murky. Our
rustling flushes a sandpiper whose

frightened wings startle the quiet
air. At the beavermeadow tall grasses
    lean past the wind and we hear a faroff
chickadee teasing. Further on there
is a lone crabapple tree bearing no

fruit but in its centre a birdsnest
      and nestled there, a scarlet apple.