NaPo 07 #13: Something Watches

Snowdrop (the 55th part):
Something Watches

Something watches. The woods are silent,
no strand of fern disturbed by footfall,
no talon of twig tugged out of place
by the passage of flesh, or fur, or cloth -
something watches. A whiff of the Marsh
mingles with the mist, mesmers the birds
in the trees to quieten the taps of their quills,
their beaks: something - stirs the leafmould:
a finger of mud fruits a hand-palm,
an arm, an elbow, an outline of shoulder
sprouting from the soil; silver moonlight
reflects from the clay as it forms a shape,
a scope of a man. Someone watches -

a girl in a glade. She gathers the mist
in her hands and styles it to the sights in her head:
the pleat of a skirt; the spin of a ball;
the heel of a shoe that she hangs on her toe
as she sits on a rock that rose to her call.
He watches her brush bracken from her hair,
noting the dirt that dapples her knees,
the white of her wrist. When she reaches
her hand to the ground, he hears the gasp
of the bulb as it spindles, blossoms: a snowdrop
for the plucking - a rare, precious treasure
discovered in the depths of this displaced wood.