a warm welcome in a quiet room

it’s who you meet along the way (they say)
a warm welcome in a quiet room awaits
                               strawberries laced with aconite                perhaps
there is an ugliness here 
exploding the myth of the fox-howl oak

first shoots blossomed long ago
                               stalking euphoria in blazing flair            perhaps
mesmerising          copper-coloured sleep-twitch       
somewhere in-between
it’s worth the journey (they promise)