Something Out There

I stand strong and large beneath the Evergreens, whose giant shadows hide my frightful face. Through my tangled hair, I feel the cool rush of the autumn wind as it sweeps across these dappled hills. Clouds above promise asylum within their misty, white folds, but I cannot go where they beckon. I am not free like the birds soaring above, whose songs echo sweetly in my ears.

I am a fugitive within my own world. I and my kind come from a forgotten time when the rivers and the mountains and the clouds and the trees were new. My elders whispered of another earth that was warm and green before the glaciers split the continents and turned everything gray with death. All living things crossed a giant land bridge that collapsed of its own weight and fell into the Bering Sea. I cry hot and salty tears for all that was and can never be again.

I watch the Darning Needle circle through the opening between the mighty trees. I follow it to the field of yellow-hooded blossoms. Their color makes me think of sunlight, although I rarely venture out of the soundless depths of the woods until darkness has settled over the land. When I do, I am careful to remain as one with changing shadows of the night. I am grateful for them as they bring me freedom to move and hide among the sage that here grows taller than the tallest man.