When you go into the woods

see how the trees bow

their heads, giving

permission to enter,

offering an unexpected

intimacy

bow in return, let

your hands rest

against your heart,

accept the imperative

even before you

understand it,

listen

as a breeze stirs

the leaves and

the air fills

with music that mimics the

undertones of loss

chords in D minor

did you know this is the saddest key,

that it can hold you, always, on the

edge of tears?

bow again to green darkness:

it now seems right to accept

its arms around you, to

accept they can hold you in

the thin space between life

and death until you learn to

breathe again, until you can

leave an old life

on its worn doorstep, and say,

and believe, that the past was

lived the only way you knew,

that nothing can, or will,

change it, that a choice to go

on is hard-wrought from a

center of just holding on, that

a new place can promise only

a newness of the path.