Storybook

Trees whisper.

You sit by a lake
or an ocean at night,
and the world of moments
you have not yet lived
is strangely familiar again.

There is an ancient story
like that,
where an old man
finds his way to shores
by mistake,
knocks on the unfamiliar door
of a darkened coast-house
and his son,
for decades estranged and given up for dead,
answers and welcomes his father home.

Or a young girl
walks into the
storm-swept waves
and is never heard of again,
until she makes it back
to town for a funeral,
and in the cool summer evening
beneath the trees
she remembers that she is that girl,
and in knowing this is saved.

You know stories like that:

     The fragrance of full green leaves
     after rain
     reminds you that you
     once believed in heaven,

     or the sound of your feet
     on a gravel road
     at twilight
     makes you suddenly want
     to cry
     or talk to children.

This story is yours.

     Look; if you go outside
     and find trees, or water,
     or tall grass,
     the wind will murmur it.

     The world wants to tell you
     why it is so tired.