The Woman and the Blackbird

She hugged herself , shivering in the chilled air.

The shawl clung to her shoulders,

the fabric familiar, woven from years of use.

The wind whipped her gray hair as it billowed

reminiscent of threads of well used stories,

and the leaves - oh, those inquisitive leaves -

they leaned in, rustling like curious listeners.

She paused at the edge of the forest,

where shadows lost themselves to the roots...

A little blackbird hopped onto a nearby branch,

its eyes polished beads of midnight.

Woman:

“Tell me, small wanderer,

what do roots whisper beneath the soil?”

Blackbird:

“They murmur of patience,

of holding fast to what cannot be seen.

They drink the silence of rain,

and remember the weight of every season.”

Woman:

“And branches?

What do they dream as they stretch into sky?”

Blackbird:

“They dream of flight,

of touching the far-off light.

They are the arms of longing,

always reaching, never still.”

The woman smiled,

her breath a cloud among the listening leaves.

“Then I am both,” she said.

“Rooted in memory,

branching toward what I cannot yet name.”

The blackbird tilted its head,

as if the forest itself had spoken.

And the wind carried their words away,

to be embroidered into the shawl of tomorrow.

/////

The woman walked on,

shawl trailing like a river of dusk.

Her steps pressed softly into the forest floor,

each one a question, each one a look inward.

The little blackbird fluttered up,

then settled upon her shoulder -

a quiet sentinel,

its weight no heavier than thought itself.

The woman smiled, raised her hand gently

patting the birds tiny feet,

thankful for the company.

Together they moved,

two wanderers bound by silence...

yet inside that silence

echoed the words they had shared.

Woman’s musing:

“Roots hold me to what has been,

branches beckon me to what may come.

Am I not both -

a keeper of shadows,

a seeker of light?”

Bird’s pondering:

“Roots are the songs beneath the soil,

branches the wings that never tire.

I too am both -

a feathered root,

a branch that flies.”

The leaves leaned in closer still,

listening with green ears,

and the wind carried their thoughts

deep into the canopy,

where roots and branches

met in endless embrace.

A perfect symbiosis - a shawled woman walking through a forest path, a blackbird perched on her shoulder, both gazing inward as if the trees themselves are mirrors.

Dreamlike, poetic moments.