Mark Kaplon

The Eucalyptus Grove

Tucked up the mountainside I flitter around for days, hidden away and handless in lofty eucalyptus. When night was late and transpiring the skin of the tent, the air came, like raised hairs, to rest on my face. With a noise here and there and changes in the air, I walked in the rain until dawn. Then, a bird-symphony in the forest.

unzipping the tent–
gray-blue, sober dawn
awake in the woods

And across logs and the leaf-litter sunrise pours colors from deep in the hearts of things. Having slept and woke in this wood more than once, to leave would be like leaving living– in thickets, can spiders spin free of their webs? And with the scents of leaves and who-knows to delight you.

smelling strawberries
in a eucalyptus grove
where no strawberry is