Tree

The woods breathe around me,

a slow, green sigh,

as if time has no edge to sharpen.

I dream of roots,

fingers darkened with soil,

reaching blindly for water,

pulling the earth’s secrets

into a quiet, rising hymn.

There is a longing in me

to stand unhurried,

to feel the rain’s cool language

spill across my leaves,

to know the sun as a lover,

touching every inch

with a soft gold ache.

The wind sings to the branches,

an elegy for everything

that breaks, that bends,

that must one day fall.

What would it mean

to have no voice

but the rustle of time,

to speak only in roots

and sap, in the language of rain?

To live is to bear the weight

of being both anchored and yearning.