Like the Deer

I sit, unblinking. If I am still enough, I become part of the story My breath falls into the rhythm of the whispering leaves, speaking poetry to the crisp glance of the Autumn breeze. My heart settles into harmony with the searching birds, flying back into warmer days. If I remain long enough, perhaps I will understand what the trees say, what the birds look for so unrelentingly. Perhaps I will understand my own heart, struck at once with the brevity and longevity of life. Or perhaps I will no longer desire to understand; I will set my heart free to flee the frost with the last butterflies. Then I will become like the deer, breath clouding from my nostrils, nothing more than a pair of liquid-brown eyes in the forest.