Treasure

Damp dew, tiny water crystals

Cling to pink polka dot boots

Casing little feet, now not tentatively tiptoeing

Now racing and chasing, dancing, darting

Over the brooks, the innocent crook

Who steals glossy gems from bursting shrubs

Swollen and fat, the juice painting patterns

On dimpled cheeks, and staining chattering lips

Purple and red, Mother’s make up

Lipsticks of similar hue, eye shadows in glittering boxes

Tied with satin ribbons on the glassed surface

Are safe for awhile, away from sticky hands

Which triumphantly clutch trophies

A fallen leaf, snatched from a breeze

Where it twirled and salsa-ed, finishing with a foxtrot

Upon a pink palm. Crimson veins crisscross on golden skin

As worn as parchment, inky lines on a Treasure map.

A twig from an ancient oak, with gnarled roots

Like snakes, twisting upward to face dappled sunlight

Illuminating the footprints of thousands

The twig is a sword, held high by our brave knight!

Who’s tiny fingers fasten on their weapon

Ready to battle, to die, to defend

Mother’s apple crumble, from Magpies and Crows

Who watch with beady eyes, on branches

Which crisscross over autumn’s pallid blue skies.

A pebble from the bubbling brook, a bottle top,

Two chestnuts, a conker, the feather of a pheasant

(Slightly battered in places)

A rusted nail, three ladybugs and a worm

A two pence piece and four pennies

A blue shoelace, and a piece of frosted glass

Humbled by the swirling, twirling waters.

To you or I this junk litters the forest floor

Yet to some tiny tot, there is beauty

Captured in this cache of fading memoirs,

A snapshot of a walk in the woods.