Earthed

Hedgetrees exude an energy of moving, even frozen in their dance: it goads a passerby to wander further.

I've come this far, I could take a stroll in the woods.

The top path is shining, licked by rain. All the fallen leaves make soft compost. Trees grip the abrupt edges with roots like dinosaur toes. Where the path is smothered by fallen timbers, there is a new path being worn beneath. Above is rotted limbs and some low badger tracks.

I've never trod there, and it's so close. I've come this far.

The bracken is black, frost smitten; the prone wood-flesh uncomfortably soft. Only the brambles are green and fresh and drag blood from unwary skin. Where the track runs out is too steep for standing, descent happens as a seated slide.

Sometimes the moss here grows bigger than the trees.

Three hours pass. Dog and I, mud flecked, drowsy, find the house again.

We both seem surprised, to unearth this life outside the woods.