The Unenclosed

Original post-glacial
Temperate broadleaf forest
Ecosystems of Europe,

Once continuous old-growth,
Long since reduced to tatters
And wondertales of dark woods,

Now nearly metonymy
For mysterious landscapes
Of impenetrable gloom

Of any kind, for darkness
In memory, gloom in mind,
Yet not nearly so ancient

As the spookiness suggests,
Young woods that tracked retreating
Tundra tracking melting ice

At a time when humans were
Very much around, making
Wicked-edged tools, tending hearths.

Assuming the ground’s not torched
To mere stubble in the wake
Of the new glacial retreat,

There will be new old-growth woods,
Temperate broadleaf forests,
Someday, north of the taiga

Of today, and maybe tales
Of how lovely, dark and deep,
They are in that past to come.

Or maybe no woods ever
Will serve that function again,
Never that endless and grim.