When They Found Me (Poem)

They told me that night the dark moon sang a sad song.

That the trees, hidden in their own thick shadows,

echoed in verse the melody of stars that have lost their way.

It was in this tune I had found myself wandering amongst pines,
giving no reprieve from loneliness nor sadness,

yet holding their own curative powers unbeknown to other mortals.

I sat down, shivering,
teeth chattering wordless tunes, and told the trees looming above me
in elongated, thin shadows, that I had come back, that their darkness
could once again envelop me in its comforting inky solitude.

I told them stories of how I never won, how I felt nothing ever went my way,
and that when I looked into the sky's eyes dark as chunks of coal, my
reflections ceased to exist.

I told the trees epics of words intertwined and woven,

tendrils seeking sunshine, month after month.

He had arrived quietly.

I looked at him, straight,

and saw a cowboy's eyes gleaming back,

reflecting nights where the moon held no shelter

and the wind whistled 'round and 'round in circles like a rattlesnake's whisper of death.

It wasn't until two weeks later that they found me, hugging
contentedly onto vines that surrounded me in a final embrace, bark
strewn in shards around me like an old ritual gone wrong.