Open Link Night 165: Pine Barrens

This is for dVerse Open Link – poems of all forms and subjects can be linked today.  I am submitting a portion from a long cyle in progress:  Pine Barrens.  It is in the style of the imagists.  Eventually, there may be haiku or tanka as part of this cycle.  This is an area that has intrigued me since I first visited thirty years ago.  Come visit us for other poems or submit you own at: http://dversepoets.com/2016/02/04/openlinknight-165/
VIII
An alien land
Sugar sand
Scrub pines
Tall pines
Cedars –
Water – serene streams
Calm rivers
Blue hole – bright blue
Fathomless depths
Unfreezing in coldest winter
People disappear in its depths

A haunted land
Ghosts of long dead buildings
Long gone families
Crumbling brick skeletons
the pine barrens slowly
obliterate traces of civilization
unwelcome in this place
people disappear in its depths

Only the trees remain
Only the animals remain
Only the water remains
only the sky remains
only the silence remains

We are merely visitors there
Welcome as long as we leave quickly
and without a trace behind
People disappear in its depths

Pinelands Preservation Alliance photo

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