The boys ran off hand in hand
Away from Mother, Father, Step-
Mother, step-father, sister and the rest.
‘Stay in the field
Of vision’
They said, all blind, all unknowing
The forest was a deep one
And they never came back
The same.
I watched from afar the green
Envelop them
Fold itself over, lick itself like a cat
With milky paws
You or I might enter with clean knees
And leave with dirty red black ones
(Or dragging yourself out
With the caps bitten off –
Nature is often hard to follow)
Their shirts beat them back to their keepers
Blowing across the yellow plain
Drenched in the brown spittle of the forest.
The boys arrived later, naked and bearded
With the end of autumn
The naked trees shivering;
The green sheared off to the brown bone
‘Here come the beginnings’ they said
‘Of a cold snap.’
