Daphne

I remembered that you were not there, that you would never be there again, that now there was only the ghost of your memory for company, and nothing more. The woods were thick with scars of the past, fallen trees turning into mushrooms, fallen leaves turning into mulch, fallen rock walls turning into a fading story of fields and cultivation abandoned in the river of time. The memory of the woods runs deeper than my memories, for the trees have lifespans beyond my own, and from their anchoring watch, watch the world spin about them. It is not that the moon revolves around the earth which revolves around the sun which spins in the arms of the giant spiraling Milky Way; rather, the roots of the trees pin the sky to the earth, stitching together our past and our future, our air and our soil. The trees are the center around which we all spin, and I am alone in the woods with only your memory walking under the shadows of the trees beside me.

There are moments when I wonder what it would be to establish a nest amidst the trees, to live way up in the embrace of the canopy, to hear the song of the wind as a call to prayer, as lullaby. There are moments when I find an old chimney, lone remaining skeleton where once was home and hearth, and I desire to flesh out the bones of a house with walls of birch bark and floors of earth stamped firm and dry. The woods beckon with the stories of everyone who has lived here before, and I hold on to the glimpse of a land that once flourished under man and now flourishes under nature.