Go as a River

by Shelley Read

I sat down in the cool darkness cast by the pines. Reaching to my sides, I scooped two handfuls: black dirt, pine needles, pebbles, twigs, leaves, one tiny snail shell, one white downy feather. I looked around me at the birth and growth and death piled atop one another, at the open bellies of downed trees feeding new sprouts, all the life pushing through every crook and crevice and possibility for light. It was an ancient intelligence far too rich and complex to fully grasp but exactly what I needed to remind myself that it is in these layers of time that everything becomes itself. Yes, Zelda was right that I, like my orchard, had been resilient in new soil, uprooted by circumstance yet able to get on with things anyway. But I had also faltered and fallen, lost my resolve, and curled into fear more times than I could count. Strength, I had learned, was like this littered forest floor, built of small triumphs and infinite blunders, sunny hours followed by sudden storms that tore it all down. We are one and all alike if for no other reason than the excruciating and beautiful way we grow piece by unpredictable piece, falling, pushing from the debris, rising again, and hoping for the best.