Karl Seidman ("Dear Anne") wrote this poem about Marymere Falls on June 7, 2001. Reading it brought me back to my visits to the rainforests of Costa Rica. The images are so vivid and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do. (If you do, please write and let me know).  - poetheart 07/26/01

By the clear lake fiord in the deep green hills
The path follows where the woods beckon,
Through age-old stands of spruce and cedar

Heavy bark is tinged with white of lichen
And pale moss like velvet on the antlers of a deer
Envelopes branches moist by misty rains

Beneath the canopy of dark evergreen
The damp earth yields new growth
As spring blows its cool breath across the land

Small trees with emerald leaves struggle to increase
In shafts of sun that filter through the layers above
But like the spruce are laced with mossy overlay

Nurse logs in repose, decaying soft and brown,
And fallen long ago, give life to ferns and flowers
and seedlings for another generation

Thus covered, branches, limbs, and logs, and gnarled roots
Assume fantastic shapes that remind us of a time
When forests were a place of fear for primal man

Further on a stream meanders through the stones
And roots and fallen limbs within its ancient course
Then rushes over shelves of timeless rock

Across the stream a bridge, a fallen trunk that leads
To steeply angled steps of roots or man-laid stone
As the shimmer sound of water's fall begins to fill the air

At journey's end the source, a slender veil,
That sheds its mist to make a scene of moss and stone
And fairy tales

An Asian mother sits to contemplate the peace
While the child darts among the roots and rocks,
A forest sprite

by Karl Seidman

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