What happens once you learn that you can heal a forest?
Do you gather all the stones,
turn them over, cool and heavy in your palms,
warm their earthy underbellies in the spotted sun?
Do you contemplate every limp and yellow leaf
prayerfully,
memorize its veiny pathways,
consider how to make it sing again?
Do you listen, one earnest ear to the ground–
and do the girls speak through their roots?
And do you learn their language?
Is what was once muted now vibrant?
Does the hampered ivy now creep up,
keen, perennial, unwavering?
Are there any flowers now?
And do you hold her,
and her,
and her, the youngest one, too?
Do you waste no time?
Do you swiftly take a balm to every wound,
prune every fear ready to disease a good branch?
And can you breathe again
in the quenched green?
Is it easy,
the way your back falls against the sturdy trunk?
Is it gentle,
the kneeling there, curious,
a curved finger
coaxing the ones that had been shunned
out of their oblivion?
Tell me,
how is your forest?
Tell me
what happens.
Tell me,
what happens then?
Darsie Malynn lives in Potomac, Maryland with four flatmates and teaches a high school course called Theory of Knowledge. Her poem, “Two Seashells Poorer” is forthcoming in Beyond Words Mag. She enjoys iced mochas, the Kardashians, and baking.