I was once the wind that taught the wheat to bow,
a hymn rustling through the hollow of old branches,
and before that, a river that carried lost dreams and lullabies
to the mouths of waiting roots.
No bell marked the crossing.
No lantern swung above the gate.
I passed as smoke does
into the open mouths of new shapes,
Reborn.
They say the soul is a thread pulled through a hundred needles,
each time tearing into a different fabric:
feather, bone, brass, thirst, song.
Not to become, but to remember
what becoming cannot hold,
only held for a short moment in time.
I was hunger shaped like a wolf,
and later, grief that wore a girl's eyes.
Each body an orchard I neither planted nor owned,
but was asked to tend with quiet hands.
Reincarnation is not a ladder
it is a storm that forgets its last thunder.
It chooses neither upward nor wise,
but necessary.
To be what the story requires
in the moment the page turns.
One life, a seed beneath the floorboards.
The next, the axe.
Another, the breath of the one who grieves the falling.
And still, no beginning.
And still, no final version of flame,
Can it be.
The maker—if there is one
does not speak.
But leaves signs in frost
and patterns in the flight of startled birds.
So I do not ask what I will be.
I ask only:
What silence must I carry next?
What wound will I wear
to become the light pouring through it?
Upon this world.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
May 2025
The Orchard Beyond the Skin