‘Forests’ by Mandy Haggith

The second poem of Mandy Haggith’s I would like to share is ‘Forests’ from the collection Castings (2007) published by Two Ravens Press. This is a beautiful collection split into three parts: Casting Ashore which is a collection of poems about Mandy’s home: a wooded coastal croft in Achmelvich, Assynt, in the northwest Highlands of Scotland; Casting Off which is a tribute to the River Kelvin in Glasgow; and Casting Adrift which consists of Mandy’s sightings and encounters around the world. Castings is only available in eBook format at the moment which you can purchase here. And you can peruse the many other books Mandy has published on her website here.

The poem I am sharing is from the Casting Adrift section and I hope you enjoy it as much as do every time I read it:

Forests

Some are dark hearts full of secrets of enslavement
some dry and dangerous
some alternately fly-infested and freezing
some damp and frail
but all spirit-rich
homes to folk with leaves in their eyes
(and mushrooms in their pockets)
who dream of chasing animals among branching
     shadows,
for whom the future is a tree-root that presses open
     rocks of the past,
with whom all stems intertwine,
in whom all saps and bloods and rivers mingle,
under whose power a single bud
becomes an eye, a wing, a soul,
becomes the whole
breathing planet.

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References

Haggith, M. (2007) ‘Forests’ from Castings. Ullapool: Two Ravens Press