It begins
like breath returning
after you forgot
you were holding any.
Not with thunder.
Not even with birdsong.
Just the sound
of nothing resisting itself.
A leaf doesn't ask permission to fall.
It just lets go.
The branch doesn't mourn.
The sky makes room.
You look up.
The clouds haven't moved
but everything
has changed.
This is not salvation.
It is the space before need.
Where nothing is missing,
and nothing is extra.
A cup,
not overflowing,
but full
in the way a hand is full
when holding another hand.
You walk
without urgency.
Even your shadow
follows softly.
There is no lesson here.
Only the knowing
that silence can be kind,
and stillness
is not the absence of motion
but the presence of everything
finally at rest.
You breathe.
Not deeper—
just enough.
And the world,
for once,
does not demand
to be named.
