in the shelter of the covered bridge – lichen garden
~
time-stamped
~
Pont Lavoie (Lavoie Covered Bridge)
Quisibis River #2
~
~
when the end-post
of the guard rail
splits and rots
the broken space
makes room
for rain and pollen
dust and autumn
leaves
other detritus
~
spores find encouragement
and lichens grow
Cladonia cristatella
uniformed in red
Cladina, blue-grey
reindeer lichen
and pyxie cups
~
lichens ageless
bridge not meant
to last forever
~
~
Copyright Jane Tims 2016
nichepoetryandprose 
Lovely poem! Recently my husband and I were driving down one of our favorite scenic roads. The road is lined with stone walls, some crumbling and old, others more recently built and still intact. And the woods are full of rocks. I’m not sure if it was the play of sunlight but they seemed to be more covered with lichens than we ever noticed before. We wondered if it had something to do with the weird winter we had this year. The natural world is ever-changing and is forever at work reclaiming the material we’ve borrowed to build things like stone walls and covered bridges…
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Barbara Rodgers
April 21, 2016 at 8:10 am
Hi Barbara. There are some locations where lichens just take over. I remember climbing to the top of Eagle Rock here in New Brunswick and there were so many lichens it was like a frosty fairyland. Jane
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jane tims
April 21, 2016 at 9:12 am
The woods did look rather like a frosty fairyland…
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Barbara Rodgers
April 21, 2016 at 10:10 am