Walk in the woods (No comments)

I found their traces

pressed into the fallen pine 

crescent moons in a rust-red sea 

and understood

they had carried the darkness away.

They had passed beneath the tall spires,

moving like quiet company

wrapped in breath and shadow,

slipping toward the forest's deeper hush.

So I rose before the light 

and followed them.

They descended the hill

with the patience of mist,

and there I was,

small beneath the blue-shouldered trees.

They paused.

Their gaze brushed me 

timid, luminous 

from beneath their long-lidded stillness.

One bent to taste the wet grasses,

silvered with dawn.

You might call it a dream.

It wore the softness of one.

But no,

this was the world as it leans toward us

when we are very quiet.

Other one, I am certain 

would have stepped into my open arms.

In the familiar way in this world

But the they struck the earth

a bright crack of hoof

through needles and waking,

like the clean knock of reason.

And they turned,

vanishing as one body

into the breathing trees.

When I opened my eyes

the clearing held only me.

And I thought:

like water finding its own depth I moved inward

like a river remembering the sea I moved outward

Without bending at all, I whispered a prayer and knelt