In the end
The day went awry –
trivial, irritate you to your core kind of awry:
machines that don’t start
and mess that won’t stop.
You know, the kind…
plans slithering through my fingers,
time relentlessly cranking.
So, empty handed, I went to the woods
where dead leaves scurried around my ankles
and blank-eyed burrows wait for night.
Fast up the hill, fizzling fury turning the cogs.
I felt it in my palms –
that need to press my skin firm
to the trunk of a tree,
feel bark under my hands.
I breathed with the oak
and peace filled me up.