The Yew Tree

the boar rustles and snuffles
searching for truffles
a female scent beneath the earth.

tendrils entwined, combined
a new dimension of mind:
flux and reflux, the smell of birth.

listen to the silence, the slow
pulse of life beneath the surface:
the forest breathing in and out.

the soft decay of leaves, the growth
of mushrooms, the complex dance
of life, water playing among stones.

Yvonne Aburrow

3.26 pm, 1 January 2003 - for Ted Lumley