Sleeping in the Forest Guiding Questions
I thought the earth
remembered me, shetook me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens[1] and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birdswho do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling[2]
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
Lines 9–11: What figurative language is used in these lines? Explain its effect on the meaning of the poem?
