Woods: Timeshare
by Mary O'Connor

Among the more imaginative vacation programs that caught my fancy this summer was an adventure in the Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve & Environmental Education Center, a 292-acres complex of woods and wildlife in western New York. Participants were invited to join in an evening search for creepy, crawly creatures, or to learn about local folklore while exploring 'The Woods' under the glow of the full buck moon. (In case full buck moon is a new term, July is normally the month when the new antlers of buck deer push out of their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur, hence the name full buck moon.)

Timeshare
Dark has come
and long shadows
reach and whisper

as forest faces
peer from the darkness
of this place where

before I lingered
and listened to the lyric
of the leaves

but now must yield
to waiting creatures
of the night.