I wake, the world shifts, wind sifts through the midnight pines.
I stand, arms outstretched to fetch a branch, a landing, a path through the black.
I walk, and the trees begin to talk.
Their hides grind, intertwined like mating snakes,
spilling submerged words into the wind.
They caw and croak,
casting aliens among me¬¬—
deep creeping creatures, feathered and rustling.
Their beaks snap with the shifting wind.
Feet light across the nightscape,
they scrape past my side with the rushing crushing rattling of the battling woods.

They circle me in the recesses of the pines, waiting
curious if I too am a hunter.