by Wilda Morris
A Walk in the Woods
I walked the path
to the footbridge, seeking
the soothing sound
of bubbling water,
the crinkling laughter
of a rock-strewn brook.
All I heard was a pair
of robins grubbing
in moist mulch,
and three ground squirrels
chasing like children
across dry leaves
in the old creek bed.
That was enough.
At Nightfall
Somewhere beyond the tree line
the sun sinks
behind gray clouds.
I sit in a silent clearing.
Nothing moves,
except swaying leaves
and bats,
their choreographed
ballet silhouetted
against pastel sky.
If I could fly with them,
circle and turn, dart and spin,
would I learn to love
the dance of dusk?
Wilda Morris, Workshop Chair for Poets & Patrons of Chicago, and a past president of the Illinois State Poetry Society, is widely published in print and on the Internet. Her book, Szechwan Shrimp and Fortune Cookies: Poems from a Chinese Restaurant, was published by RWG Press. Wilda Morris’s Poetry Challenge at http://wildamorris.blogspot.com/ provides a poetry contest for other poets each month. In addition to poetry, she writes an occasional nature blog for the Bolingbrook Patch, an online newspaper.
