What do I do with you?

I do not know how to dance

I forgot what you once taught me and now I feel clumsy

There is no shame here

At home among friends ——>

I don't know how to listen to the birds

I don't know how to approach you, yellow maple leaf

From so far away

I hear war in the distance

I hear you waiting for the call among the chirp of frogs

The drip of last night's rain

Birdsong it seems so long ago echoing in my ear

I hear shots fired

Shots continuing without answer

The fear that grips my chest at what my people might do

Slow down

Even as the engine appears to accelerate in my imagination

Do I really know

What brought me here?

Am I really willing to

Feel it in my gut?

Walking I can only share what called me here

I am so grateful for that simple choice

That all of you have offered me

In the music that animates my steps up this hill

Brave a new trail with me

Breathe with fear into courage

To soak it in

Like yesterday's rain

Clutching my feet and holding each gesture until I sigh and move on

At first you teach me this

Simply to shelter

I am not the first one to find the grace to belong

Under every fern, mushroom, pine needle, or canopy of stars

Remember the process of taking refuge here

It is in my bones

Even my mother off to war nurtured me once between shots fired

I set out to find the remnants of my wisdom

Left for me by every other white man with my name for things I did not understand

A stupid fool I feel standing in the wind

Do not make it so easy to find myself

No one has time for my contrition

If that's what stops me here to collect my words

Move on

The clearing at the top of the hill is not the only place to find light

Even if I thought you said we'd meet here

You are all around

Someone placed a mushroom in the hollow of this decay to encourage me

The world is not the maze of my imagination alone

Standing here brushing hands with the friendship of trees

Maybe this will linger a little longer if it is not mine alone

Write me a letter in the key of hope

Just don't use the paper from the mill

Write your thoughts between the flutter of wings rustling in the brush

These are not the source of things

Like so many poems of forgiveness

Walk on

On assignment for the government of apprehension

Until you see just one more sign that affirms your place in the order of things

This forest has already been working

It brought you here

Don't take me down from this great height with nothing worth more than a simple location in the heart of things

But don't burden me with less

Until that moment

When the trees reach high

And wonder what to make of us too

Not because we need to build a map of our undoing

But only because some times

In life

I need a quiet place to kneel