We have learned to feed on lightning,
click by click
our old animal minds startled into anger,
rewarded
for the fastest heartbeat
the quickest fist
the loudest shriek.
Deep within us,
we crave simplicity,
the lichen-covered branch of certainty.
All the while
our glowing screens
keep whispering
that every shadow is a threat,
every stranger a flash of teeth.
How easily we can be bought
and taught to fear.
Maybe we could look up,
just for a moment –
Step instead into the unruly daylight, where the land still remembers our footsteps.
Here, the wind rearranges our thoughts more quietly than the headlines,
and belonging is not declared or posted — it is the simple sound of someone laughing close enough to hear.
Remember the small ceremonies we forgot to notice. A chair pulled out for one more guest. The mug warming between two hands in the kitchen that isn’t ours.
The way a story grows at the table, as others lean in and add their own thread.
A name spoken kindly.
The slow untying of the knot in someone’s voice because they were listened to, and not torn down by a crowd.
We remember that belonging is not a banner, but a practice, repeated softly.
Come, unwind our pixel-bindings and step into the older weather — where the hedgerows go on mending themselves without our opinion.
Where a wren stitches her nest together twig by twig, and where the tide keeps its patient appointments with the shore.
Out here, there is no audience, no chorus waiting to be fed; only the slow companionship of trees and sky.
Reminding us — we are more than the noise we answer, and the world is still willing to meet us halfway, if we remember to arrive.”