Witnessing Being, Passing and Endless Gifting In the Fir Forest of Melissourgiotiko

By Lee McArthur
August 2025

She falls in the forest
A sprucely event
From ripped roots and twisted fleshy heartwood
Down she went
At the place of her emergence
And now she lies, still sprucely green
Wondering, surprised
and surprising
Along the forest floor
Here, a lone small cedar, long since passed
Stands as bony sentinel
And surrounding firs reaching ever upward
vertical witnesses
over the scene of her horizontaling

In this darkened and still
balsaming grove
She has birthed a yellowing space
opening the canopy
Into a golden light oasis
warm and beckoning
Where vining vines stretch
Drawn in, reaching out
across the needling of yesterday
So many brackening, mossing beings
Eagerly green the gold
life burgeons here
among yesterdays’ browning
And falling

Thank you, I say to her
For all your gifts