The Stairs in the Woods
Ann Power
Forest. Fiesta of leaves. Tawny orange,
vibrant yellow, fire-streaked red,
the tints and tents of fall.
In a tangled clearing, practically overgrown,
a grizzled stonework staircase ascends
into quizzical space.
Detached,
it leads nowhere
except in Socratic invitation,
to ponder,
an amazement, ascending,
descending to a destination
reaching?
Fir and hemlock, maple and
birch surround a mind game,
a puzzle, to formalize a quest
of purpose, longing.
Perhaps the stairs are for wood elves
seeking a vantage;
perhaps they are for some celestial presence
to climb down,
offering an ethereal summons to
continue questioning.
Or perhaps
the stairs are only an ordinary, ill-conceived
beginning.
A nearby creek, rushing over granite rocks
in fluid syllables, offers an answer
in a dialect unrecognizable,
scribbling its message all the while in
outsized notebooks of jagged stone.
About the Author
Ann Power is a retired faculty member from the University of Alabama. She enjoys writing historical sketches as well as poems based in the kingdoms of magical realism. Her work has appeared in: Spillway, Gargoyle Magazine, The Birmingham Poetry Review, The American Poetry Journal, Dappled Things, Caveat Lector, The Copperfield Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Loch Raven Review, Lowestoft Chronicle, Amethyst Review, and other journals. Her poem, “Ice Palace” (The Copperfield Review) was nominated for Best of the Net in Poetry.