Medicine Woods - Sally Duffin
One of the Top 24 submissions in our 2022 Urban Tree Festival writing competition.
Medicine Woods
(After Atillah Springer)
Take these woods like a dose of medicine.
A strong draught against the flickering screen
of perpetual emails, Zoom meetings.
A prophylactic dose of petrichor,
the earthy floor filling your lungs.
Train your eyes not on the newsfeed, but a
darting wren shapeshifting in the hawthorn,
the hair-like villi on crumbling fungi,
shattered by last night’s summer storm,
and doe-eyed rabbits down the path.
Scroll past oak, ash, beech, and pine.
Swipe your fingertips across the keyboards
of jagged bark encrusted with lichen,
desktop wrist rests replaced by
mossy stumps and soft leaf mulch.
Tune out all notifications.
Turn your ear to the skylark ascending,
her fluttering song pitched high
against the cawing crows
squabbling over carrion.
Sally Duffin
Sally Duffin is a creative and health writer, and registered nutritionist, living in York, England. She is currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing.
