If you left me anywhere,
I’d rather it be the mountains-
There with the wildflowers and dirt and running water-
There with the trees.

The trees that are my brothers and sisters, and father and mother
When I am near them, I inhale knowing breathing is more than it is,
I know I am close to home
The trees that spoke to me by swaying,
Threatening to fall but instead
They raised me

Those same trees taught me how to breathe and how to love,
They re-teach me each time I forget.
They open their palms to me, show me the value of this fragmented moment-
I do my best to get lost in them when I can.

When my heart hurts,
They surround me
They remind me that no ache is so great as the immensity of their trunks,
No worry as significant as the weight of their branches,
No earthly pain could ever amount to the detail found in just one of their leaves-
A beautiful, browning pine needle,
Fallen to the drying forest floor.