The Weight of What Still Moves

The creek spoke first,

not in words,

but in the careful way it curled

around my boots,

soft-footed,

as if trying not to startle the quiet.

There’s something in the air

that feels both full and fading—

the way fog slips through pine,

like forgetting

and remembering

at once.

Moss clings like old love

on bark that doesn’t flinch anymore,

and somewhere above,

a hawk splits sky from thought,

its call a thread I can’t follow.

A leaf falls, not down,

but into my open palm,

deliberate.

Not as farewell,

but as a kind of tether.

And suddenly,

I am part of all of this—

the bend of light,

the ache in stone,

the hush between bird calls.

Not less alone,

just more understood.

Like even the wind

knows what it’s like

to carry something it cannot keep.