Backwoods Bard | OCeallaigh at Writers-Network

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Author: OCeallaigh

Created: February 04, 2012 at 09:39 pm

Entry Type: Poem, G (All)

Category: Nature | General/Other | General/Other

Entry Stats: 5 Stars by 1 users with 1 comments 183 views

Watching life by a stream

At a peaceful place in a time of strife
Quietly watching life
While it watches me
Onyx eyes, inlaid with gold
Slowly changing from green to grey
Down from dry lofty boughs
Tree frog lounging on a wet rock
Water smoothed almost into a egg shape
Pushed up by the rushing spring flow
Like a monolith rising out of the bank
Now nearly as grey as the rock
Secure in his camouflage
He issued a quick chirping trill
Smiling I return a softer greeting
Ever appreciative of good company
Even if he was not talking to me
A gentle late summer breeze
Delivers the scent of death
From atop a flat rock, not three paces away
An old dead timber rattler leering at me
Lidless eyes that never betrayed the pain of dying
Of broken fangs and empty belly
A chosen place at which to die
I have to wonder if there was a reckoning
Between the dying viper
And the ghosts of all the lives it consumed
Dead upon the rock it lies
Soon to feed the waking ants and flies
Or a nocturnal feast for a hungry raccoon
A dragonfly hovers and zips away
Following her swift flight down over the stream
My eyes fell upon an old box turtle
Mottled yellow head half submerged
Taking in a long cool draught
Raising that head from the water
There was probably a century or more of knowledge
In those piercing blood red eyes
Seemingly regarding me with little concern
Having already keenly picked up my scent
I wondered if he ever caught scent of or saw
Human kind before this morning
Ever a place to sit and dream
Watching life come and go, by a stream

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Comments & Reviews

Galacticbeam
February 04, 2012

Helpful:

excellent

It's amazing how much life surronds us when we truly begin to notice it as you so adeptly explain here.

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