Page 175 of Into the Heartless Wood
I remember little things
in the darkness of my dreaming:
I remember that the world has color and light.
That it bursts with joy and beauty.
But I remember pain, too.
The slick feel of blood.
The dark rush of dying.
And I remember the sensation
of a heart beating inside me,
measuring out
the
moments
of
my
life.
I have no heart now.
I think I gave it up.
Outside of myself I feel the change of the seasons.
The brisk spice of autumn,
when my leaves fall
from my branches
to carpet the ground.
The sharp cold of winter,
the wet cling of snow,
the bitter glass encasement of ice.
The heady rush of springtime,
new leaves unfurling free from my branches,
flowers pushing up from the earth at my roots.
The suffocating heat of summer,
when I live for the cool wind of evenings
