She Told Me the Earth Loves Us
© by Anne Haven McDonnell
She said it softly, without a need
for conviction or romance.
After everything? I asked, ashamed.
That’s not the kind of love she meant.
She walked through a field of gray
beetle-pored pine, snags branching
like polished bone. I forget sometimes
how trees look at me with the generosity
of water. I forget all the other
breath I’m breathing in.
Today I learned that trees can’t sleep
with our lights on. That they knit
a forest in their language, their feelings.
This is not a metaphor.
Like seeing a face across a crowd,
we are learning all the old things,
newly shined and numbered.
I’m always looking
for a place to lie down
and cry. Green, mossed, shaded.
Or rock-quiet, empty. Somewhere
to hush and start over.
I put on my antlers in the sun.
I walk through the dark gates of the trees.
Grief waters my footsteps, leaving
a trail that glistens.
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