This is about the forest. The birds make silver bubble sounds. The trees sound like violins. The air is a kind of coloured sugar. The white birch screams or sings in a high voice above the others. When the river is listening she’s a good listener, but otherwise she’s self-absorbed and goes on and on about herself. A mallard duck takes flight like a man who’s never before run, but sticks his neck out and goes for it. Once in a while you’ll see a cardinal and his mate in the brown grey forest of spring and they are like a bite on bare flesh. Squirrels down branches will give you a crawly, queasy feeling you’ll want to brush off by rolling in the new grass, but the soil is damp, so you don’t do that. You’ll get all graceless. If you peel some of that bark off the shrill birch tree you can make yourself a little mask out of it, a paper mask, and you’ll haunt the forest with your tattered eyeholes and luminous face. That would be something to do. Scare the rabbits onto their strong haunches, stretched out in running. But let’s not talk about you. This was about the forest.