tracks in the dew

Here's a Fiona Benson poem, as taken from within the pictured 2019 collection (which I'd highly recommend):


WOOD SONG

Daughters, when they come
we will hide in the forest,
we'll cross the meadow
and the orchard,

their shifting rooms,
till we are deer in the woods ---
the quick-footed hind
and her fawns ---

we’ll slip through the thickets
or take the water’s scentless course,
and follow the lichen
brightening north

and I'll keep you warm
where we nest
beneath the bracken's
tangled roof,

and in the morning when we wake
we will move, move, move,
beneath the dark forgiving hand
of the clouds,

with the slightest weather
moving on,
and when our feet fall
they will fall like rain,

and there will be no catching us,
and no harm will come,
so keep close daughters
in the woods where we run,

for we are tracks in the dew
vanishing at dawn,
we are mist, we are rain,
we are gone.

---

Fiona Benson (1978 - )

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