Trail as the Fog Lifts
With every step, the wooden stairs gave a low groan. The grain, soaked by the night's rain, was soft as tender flesh. The moss on the handrail was slick, and the fog above thinned little by little until the path showed through. I heard the sound of morning coming.
The sunlight falling aslant over the stairs was the same light as on the rubber shoes left in the yard that morning. There was a light that lingered longest only in the places someone had left behind. Watching it, I suddenly knew that a day begins in the low places too.
After the fog lifted, the sunlight came all the way down to the foot of the stairs, drying the wet ground. Where that light lingered longest, a single fallen leaf lay, still not dry.
Climbing the stairs, a leaf settled softly behind me. I turned at the sound and stopped at the empty bend in the path. I feel that the footprints left where the fog withdrew were, in the end, ones I walked alone. So today too I rise from my place and walk toward that end.
I too paused a moment where the leaf had settled. Up the path where the fog had lifted, a single still-wet leaf held dew and caught the light.
Water splashed underfoot with each step on the mossy stairs. The dawn air was cold, so I rubbed my knees. Today the fog lingered late, then lifted.
Climbing the mossy stairs, I heard drops falling on my heels. The smell of wet wood ran along the path. The forest, with the fog lifted, grew a little quieter.