We know in our bones that we are welcome here, that we belong, and that we are home. Though we are certain we’ve never walked this path before, we feel the stirrings of the season’s air in our lungs. We may not know where we are going, but we can trust that the path before us does.

in your lifetime. There

you are cased in clean bark. You drift.

As if it were my own duty to find things to love,

to bind myself to this world.

There should have been a lesson somewhere.

Maybe: The basil flourishing in neglect.

I have been primed for this.

Still, his face assaults me.

I thought it best to smile.