Dark Wood

An image of a dark, overgrown forest.We realize that we are lost in the dark woods. Then we encounter familiar voices and faces, ones we’ve met before on the outside. They are helpful, solicitous, and they claim to know the way back out. They urge us to halt, to go no further. It’s not worth it, they tell us, they’ve seen all there is to see. Leave while you can, they warn. They point to your jacket ripped by a recoiling branch and your exposed wound. But we’ve come this far, and what we left, we left for a reason, even if we can’t recall it.

 

 

Leonard Kress has published fiction, poetry, translations, and non-fiction, in the Missouri Review, Massachusetts Review, Iowa Review, American Poetry Review, and the Harvard Review. Among his collections are The Orpheus Complex, and Walk Like Bo Diddley. Kress currently lives in Blackwood, NJ, and teaches at Temple University.

Photo Credit: Frédéric Lakermance

One Response to “Dark Wood”

  1. Arleigh Farrell says:

    Good capture of today’s citizens searching for a new way.

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