Alder Carr

Black alders stand in black water. Each tree rises from its own swollen stool of roots. Fog lies low and flat between the trunks, hiding where the water ends and the mud begins. Plank crossings and split logs make a path of sorts. Some are new and pale. Others have sunk until they are only a darker line under the surface. Deep in the carr a clearing opens around a low woodcutter's shelter, its turf roof sagging, its door shut. Beside it stands the great alder, broad as a cottage at the base. An iron lantern is nailed to its trunk, so long ago that the bark has grown halfway over it. There is no moon. The only light comes from small drifting points of colour among the trees, amber and cold blue and pale green, none of them still and none of them near. Ringed around one rotten stump, pale fungus caps give off a faint glow of their own.