Voice of The Forest

I Remember.

I always remember.

I watch… and they forget.

Not the ones that have been with me since they could howl at the moon, or grow on a tree…

But the newcomers… no one ever likes them.

They wander in… with Fear. Disdain. Violence. Never Peace. Never Love. And hardly ever Reverence. They smell of iron, sweat and blood… blood of my children. Blood of their children. They enter with quick steps and even quicker heartbeats.

I remember it all. Their Hatred. Their Lies.

“It’s so quiet here”, they say with their voices like knives.

But they are wrong. I am not stillness…I am not still.

I hold thousands of songs together… until the human ear can’t sort them. But if you sit long enough…. Still and truly silent. You begin to notice.

The glorious creaking of my daughters… the pines, the cedars… my loving willows shifting in her weight…. Every root snaking deep in the soil, every leaf breaking from its fresh husk… adds to the chorus of my cacophony and menagerie. My song that no one hears. The mist clinging to the branches of my sons, rolling low with stories of faraway places… stories of my sweet sister, The Sea. My brother… the far away Swamps… to the east, west, south and all around.

I always remember. All the strange, loud, musty creatures that walk upright….

I remember… their boots against my trails… aggressive. Flattening the ferns and carving their names with their strange, garbled tongue into the skin of my children… forcing me to hear their screams.

I remember… about four winters ago… a curious creature. Bipedal yes… but… it was not the same kind. Softer. Smaller… a child… strange. She entered with shoes that didn’t quite fit… no stick, pack or Noise. She entered softly, as if she knew how to move with grain.

Quietly, lightly… she sat upon one of my fallen logs… an old oak, I had let topple two winters ago, a pity… but he was ready. Ripe and ready. Old … and Exhausted. Now, he is softened with moss and insects. Mushrooms and Time.

The child… instead of intruding… instead of carelessness… instead of expectations. She walked with care… she was deliberate. She accepted my kindness…. Not like the two that entered my abode today… a rushed noise. Their laugh… brittle and metallic… not like my woodpeckers or the bluejays. But still, I provided… I offered company… I gave them shade.

I am not cruel… even to those who do not notice me.

I am not cruel…

Unlike Them.

Leaving a wrapper… a thorn in my skin. Small but Foreign. Wrong. Something that will outlast their retreating footsteps and their pitiful existence. Something that will never leave me. Will never dissolve into my roots or my river.

I do not forget such things.

I will Not Forget such things.

No. This child… the garbled hideous tongue rarely spoken by her… the metallic sheen of a false laughter. She was peace.

Better yet… she did not expect something for nothing.

Before I provided for her… before I gave her a breeze to cool her sweat… before I guided her to The Stream for a refreshing drink. She did the unimaginable for her kind. She gave me a gift.

She Sang.

Her voice thin… a little wobbly… not unlike a hum. But it wasn’t sharp. It was impossible to ignore. But her song joined my chorus…

The foxes, trees and crickets learning her rhythm. The wind carrying her notes through my children’s branches.

She was small… but she lit through me like lightning… Pure. Electric. She left no thorn in me… just warmth. Only kindness.

I will remember her longer than I will happily remember her longer than the careless ones. I will choose to remember her.

And I will be waiting for her to return. The child will return; this I know this. She carried my leaf in her pocket, one that fell into her lap as she sang. That was no accident; I gave it freely…kindly... She will show it to someone, maybe a friend, maybe no one, and they will not understand its meaning. But she will.

And when she grows older, perhaps she will bring her own children here. She will teach them how to sit quietly, how to listen, how to hum along with the crickets. She will remember that once the forest answered her back. Maybe… just maybe, her children will learn the right ways… and bring into being… a species that know my ways. It is likely it will never occur in any of their time lines… but I last forever… and when it happens.

I will still be here.

Growing.

Always growing.

Always watching. Always waiting.

Because I am not silence.

I am not absence.

I am the song you can only hear when you stop trying to own me.

I am the forest.

And I am alive.

When you cut me, I heal but slower than you think.

When you burn me, I regrow but not always the same.

When you walk through me, I will remember the weight of your step, whether gentle or cruel.

I do not sort my creatures into “good” and “bad.” A wolf’s hunger is not wicked. A rabbit’s terror is not tragic.

They are threads in my endless weaving that never ends… yet never begun.

But humans do not like that truth. They prefer stories where the forest is haunted, cursed, or blessed—never simply itself.

In the mornings, when The Sun awakes us with her beautiful continuous dawn breaking above the horizon… if you listen you truly hear.

You will hear as a squirrel chatter irritably at a jay as the jay squawks back. You will hear one of the many streams running higher than usual from previous night’s rain, with her low and tumbling voice drowning out the whispers of the mice. You will hear mushrooms pushing their way upward with the patient certainty of stone. You will hear it all… I know all this, because each movement is mine.

You may think Me indifferent, but I am not. I notice everything.

I am the forest. I have no beginning and no end—only constant change, constant becoming.

Constant Being.

I am the forest.

The forest is me.

I am neither kind nor cruel. I just am.

I am not a prison. I am not a church. I am not a thing you can own. I am the in-between, the keeper of stories in leaf-veins and ant trails. I am old and green and endlessly alive.

And when you leave me, I do not vanish. I remain here, waiting, breathing, watching.

Growing.

Always growing.

I am not yours… I will outlast you with the certainty that The Moon follows The Sun.

By day, I will watch the deer nibble nervously, their ears flicking at every sound as though the trees themselves might shift closer.

By night, I hold the moths, the owls, the creature with too many eyes and not enough names. My shadows cradle them, wrap them like blankets stitched in silence. In my comfort.

I feel your feet, when you come here.

You think you tread softly, but every step sings a story through the soil. You smell of smoke and iron.

I wonder if you notice me noticing you.

Sometimes, I bend a branch toward you, pretending it’s just the wind.

She was the only one who noticed. I await her return, and she awaits me...

She Is Welcomed.