You will never know I am here, beneath
your feet, but I will feel the tread of your boots
as you move down the trail, between
trees whose roots shape my own corridors.

How incongruous your method
of movement, so many limbs to coordinate,
the process of mastering balance. As you push
your body through the air, do you feel it
wrap around you? Does it press reassuringly
against your dry skin, like soil surrounds
my slick segments as I force wider
the crevices I travel? I have no true
heart, but my blood circulates. I have
no voice, but the birds listen for me.

You, in the bright, and me, in the dark,
so little in common. Yet here we are,
both beneath the trees.