Dark Moon Harvest

Beyond the last dirt road

there lives a wrinkled crone,

who trudges through the night,

the only soul, her own. 

Trapped within the shadows, 

she holds her lantern high,

to search for midnight flora

beneath a ghostly sky. 

Suddenly she stops 

and crouches to her knees. 

Her hands rake through the earth,

beneath the solemn trees. 

She frees a gnarled root, 

contorted in a knot.

It’s pulsing, blackened skin

reeks of deathly rot. 

Then jagged wormwood leaves

brush against her arm. 

She picks their tender stems

to make her witchy charm.

And through the mist she sees 

the iridescent glow, 

of clustered mushroom caps

along the stream below. 

So with a brimming basket,

she shuffles through the woods 

to mix up deadly potions

with all her wicked goods.