offers me a map of the forest
leads me through it in a sandpaper suit
where each tree seems to know a different language
the ground grows spongy, sinks and then drops away
just roots and rocks and odd dark pools
and the hawthorn bristles in broad Scots:
each berry o’ mine is a planet
and lower: this wood is not for you.
An ash-tree is a great silver-green god
but all the gods are dying
black-tipped stems only show
once the rot has the trunk.
Greensands, gault and kimmeridge clay.
No compass points, there’s no signal
the map leads us both scrambling
from one low ferned branch to another
tall black cypresses whisper in Occitan
the maples in maybe Croatian
slippery leaf-mould and hart’s-tongue ferns
foxgloves fringe a clearing
round a huge service-tree
in autumn crimson and hung with bletting fruit.
There’s a cell for me here, it might be years
I pine till I forget one tongue yet years again
till I learn the next still I’ll wait.

– Geoff Sawers