Mending

Rain ticks lightly against my face like blunt, cool needles. I walk slowly up the small hill. Grass is long. So, so green. Flecked with yellow maple leaves. No, carpeted. I like the way everything feels soft beneath my feet.

Under the pine, the woods are illumined as if from the inside out. Day is almost gone, the sky a deep grey. But the yellows of maple and various unknown bushes glow. Light without source, so it seems.

One leaf hangs from the swing rope, and a tiny brown bird is foraging in the ivy. Cardinals dart from the pine to masses of bird-berry bushes. Maple leaves flip and bob— like hands of a dancer or maybe old men who want to say hello.

Each thing, each and every thing here seems to heal me from the inside out. As if each were put here just for me, just for this moment... to mend. Rain ticks lightly against my face like blunt, cool needles. Mending, mending.