The Forest Cycle

The spring left, the clouds cried, the wind blew, the fall arrived.

The earth trembled, stripping the trees of their attire, and releasing their roots from where they held fervent consultations with the worms they admire. They murmured,

“left or right?”

The ferns peppered in the weeds of the forest floor groped at each other, turning their feathered tips to the sky, to their mother's lover. They begged and begged,

“Please, save us from this plight!”

Yet the sky switched light for dark, and all the plants and the creatures of the forest shrieked with fearful barks, for even those who saw at night had lost their sense of sight.

The rabbits ran, the owls knew, the frogs hopped, the birds flew.

The trees started splitting, throwing splinters to the breeze. They rushed for their targets, and drop went the robins as drop went the leaves, all clothed in dew.

The streams, so calm, began to rush over their rocky banks. They flooded through the woods, and without a thought of thanks, ate up every little creature, the plants, and even the insects, too.

Bubbles rose up in the growing wave of water as it lapped at the branches and spoke with the clouds' daughter. All while the drowned breaths swam for the surface, releasing with a pop against the blue.

The stars winked, the sky stayed, the tide sank, the world prayed.

The water spiralled to the very tops of each and every tree, and as they submerged all the bugs sang, soulfully, but not in greeting, for it was farewell that they bade.

The new ocean stilled its ascent: the butterflies fluttering above quickly fell as the wind fatigued them without relent; while the birds circled longer, waiting and waiting for this ocean of darkness to fade.

But the stars shed no light, they wouldn't dare, for the night forbid them from granting mercy on lost souls. Soon, only the clouds explored the air. The sky, therefore, left all alone, bleak and betrayed.

The day dawned, the creatures squirrelled, the dark lasted, the waves pearled.

Waves caressed waves with loving hands, as if missing the sandy shore: their lost lover. And the pond striders sped up and down the towering walls of water. So much closer was the sky's cover, in this newly darkened world.

Dawn's arrival, welcomed by the water birds' calls as they played with the turbulent ocean below. They dragged their webbed feet through the water, throwing it to the wind in hello. A morning mist appeared, climbing up over the looming waves, and at their peaks, like smoke, it curled.

The black day dawned, no sun, no stars, the silent moon had long sailed over the horizon, yet the ocean spied Mars. The water's surface was strewn with debris, in which nested spiders, silky webs all tangled and swirled.

The fishes swam, the sun beamed, the currents roared, the air steamed.

Under the air, inside the newly stretching water, the marine life explored a place of towering rubble and floating corpses, the ocean began to get hotter. And the minnows swam eagerly through logs with which this submerged forest teemed.

Pink salmons, slippery and shining, burrowed curiously into holes formed by bunnies and beavers dining, and in the sun soaked water, giddily, they gleamed.

At the surface, the turtles flapped, looking for somewhere to rest their tired flippers. Some sank below, energy sapped, yet many clung to branches and life as the water around them crashed and streamed.

The ocean lowered, the forest healed, the sky smiled, the stars unsealed.

The water drained into the earth, the streams began to calm. The fish that were left to drown in the air's palm gave life to hungry mouths, and the scattered seeds began to sprout as shattered trees were revealed

Baby birds started exercising their delicate, pink throats and crickets chirped their twilight song. All the infant creatures, new and curious, trod across flowing moats and before the ancient broken trees, they kneeled.

Lush green plants carpeted the forest floor, and little squeaking animals spent their days exploring each and every hidden door, while the sun looked on with a smile. The trees stood tall and the sky sat proud, guarding the forest which had drowned in sorrow and now laughed with life. Healed.