The Vanished Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The Vanished

It was not a forest more like a few forgotten trees
by the road, they stood close together as seeking
protection from vandals. Inside the day was dark
and I heard twigs breaking off, but saw no birds or
squirrels. Perhaps it was the spirits of the people
who had lived here but had died out as the forest
gave way to farm land and was reduced to dismal
woods of evergreens that was helpless against
agricultural progress. A way of life, beyond repair,
as a dead language that is but whisper in the wind.