THE DRYAD'S REPOSE

No path leads to the copse

where the Dryad sleeps.

It has all grown in.

He stands as if carved in stone

in the dappled and shifting shade

beneath His canopy of oak,

attired in ivy's profusion.

Through the dense greenery

odours of moist earth rise.

A snail leaves silver track

over aged roots that penetrate the earth.

I take a forbidden glance:

amid bark gnarled by time

and asymmetrical boughs,

He sleeps on, His form barely discernable

within sacred wood and green leaf.

The small brown nostrils inhale

as He sighs in His slumber,

aware of my presence.

I am the hope he dreams of.

His anguish has drawn me here

to defend His kind with my life.

I chain myself to the living trunk

and defy the screeching saw...