BY HEARTS

I am beginning to know my way

between the groves of birches

and pines, the moss-covered slopes,

boggy hollows, and larches standing

spring-ready, or winter-bare.

I am branching. My whole body

becoming a seamless extension

of the fir needle-covered ground

below. I belong here, like the fallen

cones, the dry, broken twigs,

and the towering conifers.

Amidst my wandering, I sit.

I breathe, until my inner branches feel

how they are being boundlessly

breathed. Then I let myself rest

into another’s bark-skinned back.

We are remembering how to feel

the slow flow of each other’s sap.

We are remembering how to feel

each other’s heartwood beat.