Say it straight.
Say how the grasses wave you along your path.
How the small nod of the field mouse sends you up.
How the nuthatch’s single note, repeated, reverbs in your bones,
                your veins, muscles, what
is of you and what is of all this?

Say it.
All the years of words encripted
to what you thought would be heard—
the forest is silent. It does not mind your reticence.
It is patient beyond your wildest imagining.
But it is time, it is time, so

Say what is true: that you are not just you,
you do not exist except within all this—

The grasses tremble with dew’s touch,
and the nuthatch flits among spruce boughs,
and the field mouse basks in the rising sun,
and you are them,
              and they are you,
                            and this is it,
Said straight.