journal spread

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth remembered me, she

took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone

on the riverbed, nothing

between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated

light as moths among the branches

of the perfect trees. All night

I heard the small kingdoms breathing

around me, the insects, and the birds

who do their work in the darkness. All night

I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had 

vanished at least a dozen times

into something better. 

~~Mary Oliver