A Day Hike

Bright sunrays glitter through the softly rustling leaves

that grow above my hammock.

The fluttering wings of a songbird rush past us,

quiet, yet loud amongst the silence of nature.

I snap a picture of an entangled cobweb

which seems to shimmer like icicles, as I hear

the soft turning of pages from the hammock beside me.

An orange glow begins to appear in the clear sky

when we stumble upon the aftermath of a bonfire.

Melted glass, solo cups, and trash litter the forest floor

from a night forgotten by most.

Further on, caution tape,

creaking old seats,

overgrown weeds,

an abandoned resort,

the sight of a ski slope when summer comes.

In the distance we hear howling,

cutting clear through the growing night.

Dead leaves crackle beneath our feet as

we run back, with our almost

frantic clapping echoing off the trees on the trail.

As we lunge down the final hill,

our feet kicking up an avalanche of falling rocks around us.

We open the car doors, and the sound

of screeching tires is the last that nature hears

of us.

Written in during the autumn of 2017