Showing posts with label tree sap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tree sap. Show all posts

Monday, 9 April 2018

NaPoWriMo #9: Sapling

A sapling
sits
in stream-fed
soil.
It takes
its time growing,

overshadowed
by her sisters
thirty years
ahead.

A young birch
watches the forst
transform
through spring
to winter
without

a whisper.
She endures frost,
summer heat,
dripping sap

from insect-inflicted
wounds,
stripes of survival.

A hundred years on,
the forest shrinks
to a grove,
but the birch
still stands,
observing.

Wednesday, 7 June 2017

Cryogenic Foetal Lizard

One silver tadpole,
encased, embalmed,
caught mid-fall
from an oasis
in the branches.

A lizard, curled up,
almost foetal,
scales and claws
preserved, pristine,
by cryogenic sap.

A midge, taking off
from a petrified perch,
framed, glistening,
wings rendered still,
yet in permanent flight.

A red ant, crooked legs,
frozen in its prison,
a bulging abdomen,
a honeypot,
a golden bubble.

(This poem was inspired by a documentary about amber presented by Sir David Attenborough back in 2002. Check out The Amber Time Machine if you get the chance, it's really worth a watch.)