An Autumn apple - though bruised and blemished - but still as sweet as earth and air

for #mastoprompt

Inside the bird's nest, her

mate calmly waits, her babies

anxious for bugs, festering for food

for #mastoprompt

Slash through wooded terrain

Find a way to escape the rain

Beneath the eaves of a mighty tree

Sing a song of the place we'd be

for #mastoprompt

Second by second

Minute by minute

Hour by hour

the unwelcome elusive invasive long-horned Asian beetle devours our Maples

changing the neighborhood forever

for #mastoprompt

Hidden blooms inside the rooms of forgotten trails,

the Mountain Laurel sits patient, and ready, for sunlight and rain

In late spring, as summer sings its early song, the laurel opens its flowers

like pretty origami rice bowl folds, beneath a shaded forest

for #mastoprompt

The old stone fence running in the woods along property lines has long become bent and broken

weathered time, and tree seedlings nesting inside gaps, replace man's desire for order in the wood

A hundred years from now, the forest will reclaim itself, and mossy rocks will be only faint echoes of places where one land ends, and the other begins

for #mastoprompt

In sheltered earth, among bugs and worms

the seeds, sleep - buried deep -

the awakening, then the growth then a tender harvest,

for another season, for now, can keep

for #mastoprompt

A stubborn plant, ever persistent in its need for sun, finds a means to make its way back

This flower's rooted in the sandy soil of the city's broken concrete sidewalk crack

for #mastoprompt

Crimson-colored with orange veins and browning edges

the Sugar Maple leaf drops

to join its brethren on the crumpled floor of an expanding seasonal canvas

for #mastoprompt

Swoop and loop and alley-oop - the butterfly sings shadows to a setting sun

I've begun to count how many times the flowers hide their calling rhymes

as I map the path to mark the start from where this gentle flier's first begun

for #mastoprompt