Seeing

I read a story in a book about trees and leaves and moss and such which told of small lives below earth’s surface. Just around root and ring were these lives, each holding on to the magic of quiet and concealment. And the story said, if you sat under the trees, cleared a small circle of leaves and sat inside it, your back braced against a tree trunk, you would feel the small lives pulsating; feel the blinks of tiny, seeing eyes boring through their ceiling which, as I have told you, is the earth’s crust. And, if you are lucky enough to have with you a child or a lover, and, if you pull the silence up under your chin like a quilt, you can sleep and dream the dreams of kings and queens and claim the gifts of gods.