Journey of Trees

By the little moat that led over the bridge to the Tower of Dreams there paused a girl, shimmering in the dark. She was singing. Her verses were fragile and threaded in a voice that seemed unused to speaking, the lilt tricky, as if she were learning words for the very first time.

          We are many

          They are few

          Yet they bring fire, axes too

          We speak

          We plead

          They hear us not

          Our limbs they cut

          Our roots they cleave

          They hear our sorrow

          Yet do not leave

          We are spent

          Our bodies bent

          The families gone

          The mothers lost

          The young ones will never be

          Land filled with nothing

          Not even ghosts…

          Deeply moved, Rielle knew that time was pressing and reluctantly hastened through the sixteenth door, letting it close prudently behind her, the night’s events and the girl’s poignant song threading through her very being.