Awakening

At first you become aware of the silence, the strange quiet laying just beneath a crust that cakes the receptors of the soul. Then slowly what surrounds you begins to loosen. Sounds filter through, whisperings of movement trickling out of the shadows, part of song patched onto a faint whoosh of wings passing overhead and the long notes of the wind through wires drawn out across time. Something stirs, stretches to unsheath nerves anesthetized by sleep. Beneath tall trees, small fingers of light pick over a scattering of dead leaves as if looking for something left there seasons ago.