The Near-Tropical Forest

The early morning's shafts of sun
beaming through the fall canopy
of the forest does little to dispel
the chill of this new season. Cleft
by a mountain stream whose roaring
crystal water foams and leaps in
eddies around the massive boulders
that were hurled from the bordering
mountain slopes in antiquity, the
atmosphere though chilled is as
fully humid as a tropical rainforest
with deeply soft but tough mosses
layering the forest floor. Butterflies
waft lazily above the brook and
through the understory of dogwood
and Moose maple. The forest is a
study in contrast and evolution
from the towering masts of old pines
the hemlocks and oaks, the massive
yellow birches on whose shaggy 
bark grow silver lichens, the 
young hemlock and fir to the
micro-forest of mosses, mountain
sorrel, partridgeberry and fungi
the forest's population constituents
thrive in their primal atmosphere.