Day 6: Knurled

Genre: Haiku & Autobiographical Piece 
Universe: n/a
Rating: G / TW: None

Mother’s voice calls me

But with the elder oak tree

I would rather stay

❖ ❖ ❖

     When I think of knurled tree bark, I find myself back in my childhood. In particular, I see the cool mountain forests of my grandparent’s home. It would be a lie to say I haven’t given my heart to many different forests as I’ve grown. Even the pine trees that doomed me to tears as I tried to remove the sap from my hair were fondly adored - even the one with the branch that snapped under my foot, sending me around fifteen feet to the hard, dirt ground - which is quite far when you’re only four feet tall at the time. 

     I would lose myself in those trees for what felt like ages to my child-aged mind. Anything could happen there, I could be anyone. I was beautifully alone, yet never truely. I learned to read the shifting of the weather from the sounds the breezes made in the branches. The creek that ran along the border of my grandparent’s forest carried so many of my adventures and daydreams, going on to retell those stories over every smoothed rock and pebble.  

     If there is one thing I’ve learned over the past year and a half, it is how much my soul yearns to be back in those woods. I do not know if it is solely the longing for a place I cannot return to or if it is a need to feel a canopy of trees over my head again, but I yearn, nonetheless.