When I Become a Forest

W H E N I B E C O M E A F O R E S T

when I become a forest
you will hear my smell calling for you to come
barefoot

softly
stepping on my moss
you forget restlessness of all the cities
beautiful and ugly

I touch your feet with my mountain streams
washing away noises of all the wars
heard and seen

I flow underneath your transparent skin
with my sun
melting all doubts in your lungs

I whisper a song written a life ago
into your ear
and you recognize me

my forest fingers
braid you hair with my grass
and I read all unspoken words of yours

I give you
blood of my rivers, milk of my wildberries and flesh of my soil
and you never go starving

I shelter you
in my silent caves
and my round darkness protects your sleeps

early
before I tell the animals a new day has come
I wake you up
with my wind entering your body
and you see me
and this beauty is all yours

you press your face
against the morning dew
skin to skin
you inhale warm smell of life from the earth
and you remember you have always been here
and you know you have always been a part of me