from the cracked rock flows the sweetest spring dancing down the crags to pool gently before running across the gravel of once mighty stone cutting deeper into the forest floor dappled with light falling through the waving canopy above a doe bows to drink a crown of gnats buzzing around her head as the underbrush ripples with the warm breeze of the south

far from there he lays in bed as his head plays an adderall induced drum solo in three time signatures as he thinks of the for of the stream of lazy leaves waving from thick branches above the hunter in his crouch sighting down the barrel the soft intake of breath the gentle squeeze of the trigger the smell of powder rich in the air

the sharp retort cracks through the once silent forest as a hundred birds burst from silent roost to fill the sky above with flapping wings and panicked cries the for starts than falls on the soft tufts of grass grown thick by the life giving waters a squirrel scampers past with no second look up the trunk of the closest oak to pause halfway and watch him approach

he rolls over pulls the cover up right around his neck as he wills the scene to fade to return to the cracked rock the sweet spring the soft rustle of leaves two rabbits hopping from bush to bush unaware of the snake coiled on the warm rock the spider spinning a web between branches the fat bees flitting from flower to flower