Hardscrabble Lampwicks

Peace in the oaks and tickly pokes
From stickly grasses and puncture sticks
Soft late afternoon sunlight of autumn
Bringing mellow soothings warming the woods
Just enough to emanate the savory scents
From the hardwoods and pines

The woodpeckers' wood lot work shop
Which rings of knocks in hard stalks
Busy burrowing pine nuts and acorns
In holey larder racks and dark shelves
Hidden tucked away in their woody depths

Storekeepers of the woodlands
Who enjoy their sweet cakes in the mid-winter chill
Enemies of the manor foxhounds
If they get so bold as to invade
And make it their pantry of dry food stuffs

Spooky giant Halloween forewarners
Begin their deep woods creep
Spreading fear across the land
In a migration of dreadful abomination
Terrors if you find one on your pants leg

But in their hideous truth
They are not concerned with you
Do not wish to crawl with all eight legs
Digging into your suddenly rising skin
That shrieks with the horror of spiny hair

They wish to rather leave you alone
And seek only the companionship
That females alone can give

Yearning for the ecstasy before the agony
In a frenzy of love drunk intoxicated delirium
Of being eaten alive by their lover
After seeding a new generation

Answers we can't comprehend
To the questions in the dust dry hills
Laced with oak and manzanita tangles
And dark shadowed corridors
Lit with the bright boulders of the harvest moon
Hardscrabble lampwicks of the night