A Dryad's Mourning

by Deborah Guzzi

A distant scratching, a twisted burl cries out, the woodland’s lost its lore

deformed and rotting roots re-curl all about, the woodland’s lost its lore.

Once a healthy growing landscape, its breath so clean and pure, transformed,

now, it collects mankind’s waste, no haven devote, the woodland’s lost its lore.

Long gone the plush, fine fingered moss, the flecked lichen’s lace tracery,

large tracts of forest huddle defaced, staked-out, the woodland’s lost its lore.

With plastic bags the boughs are draped, glass bottles scar its glacial scree,

man’s defiled a holy place, where new life sprouts, the woodland’s lost its lore.

Once fresh streams are fouled with waste, the water’s now a deadly place,

no nymphs guard the springs, now; there’s drought, the woodland’s lost its lore.

No dryad lives in ash or oak; the elm’s long gone; the birches shiver.

I mourn the God’s of dawn, in trepidation I shout, the woodland’s lost its lore.