Fragments of Woodland

I remember the moment
we entered the woods:
boots imprinted soil, releasing
the scent of bark.

I remember how the shadows
and undergrowth embraced us.
The chill traced goose bumps
on our skin as we brushed past

rusty ferns and sodden grass,
tangled in branches, kissed
by leaves and brushed by fungus,
and acres of trees exhaled

into fragments of sky and cloud,
a sigh that hugged our lungs
and filled them with a woody
song that flew like flocking birds.

I remember there were pinecones
on the path, acorns and wild hazelnuts
like Hansel and Gretel crumbs,
and droppings of woodland animals.

Stray rays of sunlight paved the way
into darkness, away from the day,
and the birdsong stopped, not a tweet,
the only sounds the crunch of feet.

Kim M. Russell, 20th June 2024

I missed Laura’s Meeting the Bar prompt last week, in which dVerse Poets were elaborating lacunae in the fragment or keeping things whole. I was attracted by her exploration of fragment poetry, which she says comes to us in several different forms. For example, ‘literal pieces of torn papyrus, church mouse eaten pages so that what was once complete comes to us readers as disjointed words, lines, pages’. I was interested to read that translators of Sappho filled the gaps where possible with bracketed guesswork in order to find the sense/meanings that are lost. I also like the way that modernist and postmodernists wrote fragment poetry ‘as a mirror to time and space in contemporary urban life, with its linkage of non-sequiturs leaving gaps as tears, lacunae, like a mouth of broken teeth.’

Laura gave some examples, to inspire us to take a fragment of poetry and make it a whole. She asked us to pick a fragment by selecting up to 13 consecutive lines from a published poet (can even be a fragment poem) OR from an unpublished draft of our own OR from one of your own poems. She then asked us to integrate this fragment into a new poem, keeping the line order and scattering it throughout the new poem as broken lines, disjointed words etc., with gaps, pauses etc. OR write the new poem alongside the fragmentary parts, as though they are in dialogue. The fragment lines and words must be italicised and we must make reference the author/poem.

I took twelve lines from an old poem of mine, Embraced by the Woods, and I’m linking up the resulting poem at this week’s dVerse Poets Pub Open Link, for which Sanaa is our host.

45 thoughts on “Fragments of Woodland”

  4. This is exquisitely woven, Kim! 😍 I especially admire this part; “and acres of trees exhaled into fragments of sky and cloud, a sigh that hugged our lungs and filled them with a woody song that flew like flocking birds.” 🩷🩷

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  5. Sincerity in your words, in this verse, and a poem dedicated to your forest walk is very difficult to better. Highly enjoyed and nice photos.

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  10. ❤ ❤ ❤ perfect poem. the way the trees exhale, their “sighs” balm for your lungs is exquisitely sacred, Kim. every other part of your poem as well. please put this one in your special folder.

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  11. A lovely rugged poem, Kim, that gave me all the refreshing windswept feels! My favourite lines:

    “and acres of trees exhaled

    into fragments of sky and cloud,
    a sigh that hugged our lungs
    and filled them with a woody
    song”

    🤩👌🏼

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  14. You wove the threads well enough into your poem that they didn’t seem separate. Not sure what that accomplishes for the poem itself; my attention was spent observing the seams. Still, always a pleasure to walk in the woods with Kim.

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  15. I thoroughly enjoyed this, the passage “… a sigh that hugged our lungs
    and filled them with a woody song that flew like flocking birds,” has more poetry in it than should be legal. 🙂 It was delightful.

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  16. Thank you for taking us on this walk, I could feel the chill and the warmth of the sun rays as it filtered through ,the scent of bark and then that crunching underfoot, such a wonderful sound to hear. A gorgeous poem that brings a soulful sigh.

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