it doesn’t resist your steps,
forcing heavy legs to limp
through thick thigh-high
silt and water, parting fronds
falling down to drape across
your shoulders, catching foreheads
with the odd pin-pricking thorn.

the trees drinking so deeply
pack themselves around you,
almost marvelling themselves
to waking at this strangeness
trampling through the roots
eyeing the orchids perching
in fragile perfection on logs.