Inherit The Earth Poem by Val Morehouse

Fifty generations of moles contracted business
amid this grassy wood. Turreted trees provided all needs,
an easy Eden shingled green to lighten heavy
Junes with dew threading silver
droplets like spot-lit spiders puffed
from some emerald sky.

Trunks, those leggy pillars, feather the edges,
camouflage with nets of rough gray line and furred shadow,
sifting the fallen leaves with dots of light,
careless of how the rasp of pelted feet,
accuses silence with echoes that
racket across the forest.

Inevitable, the blind collision.
Green veins shiver with expectation.
Petals shake into chasms beneath quivering stems,
shaking awake sleepers, summoning watchers
to heartbeats betrayed by foliated indifference,
small, blind noses rashly ventured beneath
the padded leap of chance.

Blood tolls are taken. Tooth and claw
coin clink down. As prophesized, the meek inherit
earth where ghostlike mushrooms grow feet,
thrust up markers over mottled leavings, and lace secret
filaments around pirated treasure consigned to
ground by yesterday’s speculation.