With Painted Words

Beneath These Branches

by Anastassia Bougakova

Beneath a canopy of bare branches

Lies silence of a long forgotten ilk

That whispers words of wisdom in my ear

And drapes my shoulders with transparent silk.

 

It talks of trees and soil, death and birth

‘Till it is silence no longer,

But more a noise that grows in my head

And makes my footfalls surer, stronger.

 

It warns me of the time when I was dead

Beneath a gnarled, old, leafy oak

With eyelids heavy and hands cold as ice

That glazed the mossy stones like a cloak.

 

When birds sang songs of springtime no more

And fallen leaves lay piled under snow,

It was back then that I had woken from sleep

And ventured into places I now know.

 

The rocky pathways twisting through the trees

Are now beaten roads leading home,

And when the silent music truly stops

Perhaps it's there that I'll finally roam.