The Forest

The night I wake up in my dream
Of the dark forest,
Ardent crimson and deep fuschia;
Root fingers cradle fossils
In the rich chocolate earth.
Insects tear slashes of color in the air—
Azure blue, sunburst yellow,
Acid purple, Sour apple green.
Flake-white mushrooms stagger
Across layers of tobacco-brown leaf-mold.
Riding a storm-gray caribou,
Bone handle and leather strap,
Through flickering caves,
I feel a tail grow from the base of my spine.
Peppermint calcium latticework
Ascends to the stone ceiling
Where russet and tar-black bison
Rumble over vast ochre plains.
Whorls of bats, like fallen angels,
Coil and loop in the air's ice crystal clarity.
Dreamtime trickles into waking.
Dripping images condense into matter.
Liquid fire pulses through
Quartz glass stalactites.
Rock formations resolve
Into biological structures.
The night I wake up in my dream,
A dionysian bonfire
Singes the willow leaves in my back yard.
Bloodstone-red beads of sweat
Glow on the ecstatic faces
Of my neighbors as they dance.

David Aronson