We climbed, without caution, over the tape
hung to keep us out, and into
the clearing, hushed, raindrops muting
sounds for miles, hedging us in,
like an invitation, like a good secret.
And there she stood, giant, warm,
the great protector of the forest, her trunk
so massive, as if hundreds of tree spirits had woven themselves
together, memories intertwined like a braid,
the smallest now morphed into the strongest of them all.
She sways, dances under the mist drifting down
from the clouds, the only noise in the quiet edge
of holiness, heaven’s borderlands.
And then I see it, her sturdy face gently making itself visible
to us, her lone visitors. A single eye,
and a mossy nose forms the kindest face,
a trusting face.
She seems wise, so full of stories.
So many lifetimes, all tangled together.
I want to reach out and embrace her,
press my lips against her mossy
nose, want her leafy arms to enfold me,
and whisper to me their answers-
I know they hold the answers-
to the questions always burning
inside my small body.
“Hello,” I whisper.
And she just smiles, and looks down at me,
a glimmer in her eye.
But I know she can hear me, and I wonder
how many other questions and hopes she is holding
inside her branches, hundreds
of secrets like raindrops, filling her
with a song of purpose, prayers dancing in the breeze,
ever lifting her holy questions to the sky.
