Where the Ferns Still Bow

I.

They said her favorite trail was lost,

swallowed by the years

and shifting trees.

But I went anyway

not to find her,

just to feel the echo of her footsteps.

II.

The path had narrowed

like time does

when no one's watching.

Ferns brushed my legs like

the softest memory.

I swear they knew my name.

III.

There

the split stone she used to sit on.

Still moss-covered,

still cracked

like her laughter

when it was too loud for sorrow.

IV.

I stood where she once stood,

where she wrote those quiet lines

no one else understood:

"I dwell in possibility—"

the notebook tucked

inside her coat,

her hand always smudged with ink.

V.

Beneath a twisted pine,

I found a folded paper

wrapped in oilcloth

her handwriting, unmistakable.

A letter.

Not to me,

but to whatever sky was listening.

It read:

"If someone kind finds this,"

"know I walked with love beside me,"

"and that the trees are older than grief."

"I go now to meet the silence."

VI.

I sat down.

Cried,

not with drama

but with the ache of finding

something you didn’t know you lost.

I placed the letter back,

beneath the pine.

Let the roots keep it.

Let the earth remember.

VII.

On the walk back,

a single white feather

landed on my sleeve.

And the wind

sounded like a voice

I hadn’t heard in years

but never truly forgot.