Plant One More

I stepped outside into a heat that had no interest in being kind, and by the hundredth meter my body was already confessing everything it couldn't carry. I asked the Sun, foolishly, humanly, to soften — and he did, so easily that I almost missed the sleight of hand in it. It wasn't me, he said. Look up. The Clouds had merely wandered over, borrowed light for an afternoon, and when I turned to thank them they were already unraveling, already someone else's doing. It was the Air, they said. She carried us. So I found her — moving, always moving, the way grief moves, or love does, touching everything and staying nowhere. Don't thank me, she said. Thank what gave me breath. And there they were. The Trees. Not speaking in riddles, not deflecting — just standing where they'd stood longer than my questions, longer than my thirst. You want to thank us? Not with your mouth. Not with your bowing. Kneel in the dirt instead, give a seed back to the ground that raised you — plant one more.