Riverbank refuge, where nobody says I don’t belong. Where there are no words at all. 

My ears rest into rustling leaves, flowing water, crickets. Into the chatter of chipmunk and squirrel. A splish of minnow-jump, a splosh of turtle-slide, a splash of frog-leap. 

A finger of sun filters through viridian tree mothers in silent splendor. A golden messenger.

Here I can breathe, welcomed into moss and leaf litter. Soft bed, heavy head. Back on the cool earth, face in the warm air. Small circle of blue sky at the end of the treetops, my eye to the other world.

The world where my parents hear my far little songs in their living bones. The parents who made me, the ones I yearn to meet.  

This world, where my bones know their songs, and grow strong and tall. This world, where our voices blend, and we are known to each other. This world, where we are bound fast, and yet move with freedom. A feathery tether of love and dust motes, loosely woven through the music of the spheres.