The Keepers

The creature of me hunts at night

eyes to the sky,

ears to the ground,

her hands dig deep

into roots full of stone.

As moonlight hums through crooked boughs

she reaches for that which is hard to grasp,

that which will enflame her soul:

Old-growth to break the bones

of what she thinks she knows.

She moves through the forest silent as sleep,

she will be returned to the earth,

she’s been told,

by the song of the Old-growth

that waits to eat her bones,

her reapers,

her sisters,

her guides, and

her keepers:

they whisper her name through the night.

It is them she seeks, whom she hunts in the dark,

for when her body ceases,

when her cage finally breaks,

she’ll want to know where to go,

she’ll want to know where she is…

and only Old-growth knows what lies beyond being dense.

Only Old-growth knows

where to find rest

and what lies beyond

the veil of death.