THE DARK BENEATH THE WILD
- Mar 7
- 1 min read
By Sharon Marie Hier
The forest shows its truest face
only after the sun abandons it—
when the last streak of gold dissolves
and the earth exhales
its deeper, older breath.
In that hour,
the wildness wakes.
Not the soft, green gentleness of day,
but the feral heart beneath it:
roots twisted like clenched fists,
brambles sharpened into threats,
and the night creatures
stepping out of their hunger.
The darkness here is not empty.
It roars.
It sings.
Its beauty is carved from tooth and claw,
from the gleam of predator eyes
tracking the tremble of leaves,
from the quick heartbeat of prey
learning the shape of fear.
The moon spills a thin sheen
over the violence of living—
bones scattered like pale flowers,
the soft rustle of wings
that know death as an intimate friend,
the slick, wet shine
of life returned to the soil.
Yet within this savagery
a strange grace unfolds:
the elegance of the hunt,
the symmetry of decay,
the fierce mercy of nature
making room for itself again.
Here, beauty is not fragile—
it is relentless.
It grows in the shadow
of everything that devours,
in the quiet certainty
that darkness feeds the world
as faithfully as light.
And when I stand alone
among the howls and broken branches,
I feel that savage splendour
rise in my own blood—
a reminder that even in darkness,
life burns brightest
when it refuses
to be tame.