Hickory Run State Park

[brynmawr1]

Hello Steve-
I have not read any of the other comments, so I'm looking at this with fresh eyes.


I found a place where I was lost
in green light on a forest floor,  OK, fair enough opening

refracted as the deepest sea.  this phrase doesn't make sense to me. I understand refraction but not in this context.  Maybe 'refracted by the deepest sea'. Still, it almost reads as if you are beng refracted (not the light).
Scattered, naked trunks of trees

towered like meaty kelp toward the sky.  odd phrase, and hard for me to picture
An emerald surface dipped and swayed  confused by this, too. Maybe 'undulating'?

by waves of leeward wind. The sun beamed 
in slanted rays, a quiet serenade  mixing up my senses here. What am I hearing if it's quiet?

through a still and misted air. Hmm... first we have wind and now still air. Which is it?
Dappled ferns carpet sandy ground

swaying with a verdant tide; drawn
deeper down by each fiddlehead

sun-tipped fractal curl to depths
a sailor might happily drown. Is the sailor trying to drown the fiddleheads, or is the sailor drowning?

I don't know, Steve, there's a lot of sensory feel to this piece, but I never re-surface to that forest floor.
Sorry if I'm sounding a bit harsh, but I think you need to take a deep breath and re-visit this one. 

HI Mark,
Thanks for reading and your detailed comments.  This one has generated a lot of back and forth.  Others didn't like 'meaty' either, some did.  I will go over your comments and see where I might adjust to make things clearer.
Thanks
steve

---

The good news is that a human can drown in only 3 inches of water, so great depths are not necessary for the central metaphor to work. 

I wonder if "meaty" doesn't blend well with the rest of the piece because it's opposite your style. We all experiment with different techniques, but the most compelling voice is always your own. 

Strikes me as quite a Romantic poem, in the historical sense. Wherever your poetry journey takes you, this style does work for you judging from the intensity of people's responses. 
And the fiddleheads; Romantics love those fiddlehead ferns...

Thanks again OMG for reading and commenting.
bryn