Cedar

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I had a dream about you, cedar tree. That you were gone. I ran to the empty space where you had once been, and I knelt in the rusted leaves. The sun fell over my hair, and over the fine, carved lines on my hands, and I ran my fingers through the blistered earth, as though through water, through black, bloody, seaweed. But you were not there. No stump. No place of mourning or rest. I stood and ran. The heaviness of the air followed me. One by one each tree vanished, until the forest was barren. All I wanted was to sit with my back against bark. To look up and see the lace of your leaves against the sky. But the trees were gone. The ferns lay severed and stepped on, and the salmonberry bushes wilted into pale, thorned dust. I couldn’t run anymore. The wind halted to absolute stillness. And then it was over, and I heard only my own small heart, flittering softly, like a dead leaf, trapped and wrapped carefully in my chest.