A Woodland Nativity
On the birth of nature.
A diminishing cloud-line
dances a meagre waltz
over the verdant forest.
Our broken King spreads forth
a scurrilous offering.
‘Thou who brings me the
head of the Hampton Witch
will find their pockets filled
with diamonds and pearls.’
One by one, they make
foot-strokes into
encroaching gloaming.
Branches blot the sun
from stroking their necks.
‘Where are you, Witch?
What have you done?
He seeks the slipping
of your jugular blood.’
But all who find her
quickly forget. Dancing
a dizzy prophecy
back to their homesteads,
‘o’ King, we want not diamonds,
we want not pearls,
we want a life for
our baby’s unborn.’
What rage invokes
a furious wrist,
as loyal kin light
the forest with envious flame.
‘You shall practice not
your poisonous potions,
you shall perish along
with your curse-births.’
Through a mass of
preternatural wailing,
A solitary voice echoes
through smouldering ash,
‘With burning comes
a painful price,
you’ll see by the spring-
time rising hours.’
‘Your wives and daughters
shall birth not babies.
Look out on Spring Equinox,
at my forest, born anew.’
Nine agonising months later,
the Queen and her ladies
grow larger and hungrier,
as woodland smokes
a crimson smog.
All the Kings Horses
and all the Kings Men,
struggle to find their sanity again.
Dawn-rise silence is greeted
with a hundred violent howls.
As the Last tree of Hampton
Woods falls to the ground,
saplings sprout a panoply
of leaves from blood-
-drenched bellies.
Through horrifying labour,
a Lazarus Woodland
receives nativity.
A bright, luscious, unfaded Forest.
C.B
Read the preceding poems here,
Watch this space for further adventures in Kindraire.
