"The Old Man of the Wood" (A Poem)

Although written for children, Jane Yolen's collection of Halloween-themed poetry presents more than just the traditionally silly limericks which often fill anthologies of this kind (read her humorous "The Fossilot" here). A few, including "The Old Man of the Wood," are astute and poignant, providing serious glimpses into such elements as magic and mortality.

I went into the willow-wood
To strip a branching bare,
And spied an old man by a stream
With leaves in place of hair.

His fingers were like thorny twigs,
His knuckles knobs of bone,
His legs were gray and heavy
As if carven out of stone.

His face was seamed with jagged lines
And crusted hard as bark,
His voice was whispery like the wind
That haunts the woods at dark.

He said but this one thing to me
That long I've pondered on:
"Your kind is like the yearwood,
Quickly harvested, then gone."[1]

Works Referenced 

Yolen, Jane. "The Old Man of the Wood." Best Witches: Poems for Halloween. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1989. 20.
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[1] Yolen, 20.