Elizabeth Shack
Homecoming
When it’s time, I go to the grove. Oaks, maples, and hickories tower above me, clustered in the low area beside a small river. The ground is dry now, but hollows that lack trees and brush will be vernal pools in the spring.
Beyond, the prairie stretches for miles, but the grove feels like another world. The prairie is freedom, but the forest is home.
Prairie Grove Chapel—
arched gold-leaf ceiling
songbird choir
its congregants, squirrels at prayer
its altar, a mossy log
I shed my shoes. My bare feet sink into inches of leaf mold, dry on top, damp beneath. Twigs and hidden acorns prick my soles painlessly. The trees begin to sing with rustling leaves.
I leave my clothes behind. Wind and dappled sun bathe my skin. Undergrowth stings and scrapes my thighs. I have no destination in mind. I follow the choir: breeze and birdsong and busy squirrels.
Each step takes more effort than the last as my feet burrow deeper, past the fallen leaves, into the damp loam beneath, where earthworms nibble my heels and my toes stretch toward water. My knees grow stiff, and then my hips.
A silver maple sapling coils around my leg like a welcoming cat. A walnut wreaths my bare shoulders in yellow leaves that carry the remembered warmth of summer.
I raise my hands to touch the leaves, and my arms float higher, above my head, outward. My impossibly long fingers twitch toward sunbeams.
I find the edge of a stand of solemn, regal oaks. I could have joined them, but they are too imposing, too ancient. They’re drowsy with winter approaching, but one rouses enough to smile, and I relax a little. I belong here beside them, but not as one of them
At the sunny edge of the grove are the wild black cherries, friendly, generous with fruit. Like the walnuts, their leaves are already yellow. I find a spot among other young, smooth-barked trees. Part of the forest grove, part of the prairie, we stand tall in the autumn sun.
feet to roots
hands to leave
skin to bark
bones to heartwood—
soul to forest
About the Author
Elizabeth Shack lives in central Illinois with her spouse, cat, and an expanding collection of art supplies and gardening tools. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Writers Resist, Daily Science Fiction, Drifting Sands, cattails, and other venues.