Echoes in the Forest

The paper felt impossibly thin in my hands, a fragile leaf waiting to be torn by the slightest breeze. My poem, a collection of words I’d wrestled from the quiet corners of my mind, lay there, stark and vulnerable against the crisp white. It was a piece born from those first tentative steps, a hesitant echo of the “Wild Symphony” that had first stirred something deep within me. I’d written it after a particularly long walk, the scent of damp earth and pine needles still clinging to my clothes, the memory of a lone deer, its eyes like liquid pools, etched behind my own.

I called it “Forest Floor,” a simple title for a simple observation. It wasn't grand like the wolves or the bison, but it was mine. It spoke of the mosses, soft and yielding underfoot, of the intricate patterns of fallen leaves, of the quiet persistence of fungi pushing through the decay. It was about the small things, the often-overlooked details that made up the vast tapestry of the woods.

*Mosses weave a velvet cloak,* *On ancient stones where secrets sleep,* *Beneath the boughs where sunbeams poke,* *The forest’s quiet promise keep.*