in those deep woods
lie my deep roots,
ancestral burial grounds.
we do not cross paths, but set out
from the same point at the same pace
just moments apart.
within the tangled undergrowth
lie the secrets seeping
through the soil and into the stem.
they live in the earth and the air,
the smoke rising
from a ghost of a ring of fires,
of embers dying,
whispering a song
in tongues indistinguishable.
they float along the breeze’s current
to the unmarked graves in the hill
chanting hymns of awakening.
they move in circles at predawn
dancing in and under
those astral premonitions
white with blessing
smiling gently on a new moon.
