Dryad

This forest is the only church I have.
Nothing numinous is elsewhere.
Beyond these branches
I feel no shudder to the tap root.
Only simple fear.

Not here.

Look around, it is the twist of trees,
roots exposed,
everything slow dancing with the shadows.
Most of all it is the smell,
of death and life in one;
as though fall and rise are just two directions,
rot only a paradise for mushrooms.
There is nothing above the world, or below,
I know. But something huddled holy by the side.

Seth Crook taught philosophy at various universities before deciding to move to the Hebrides. His poems appear in recent editions of Envoi, Magma, Gutter, The Moth, Southlight, The Journal, Poetry Bus, Prole, New Writing Scotland, and on-line in such fine e-zines as Antiphon, Snakeskin, and Ink, Sweat and Tears.