The Elders

They’ve stood here longer than maps remember,
spines straight through storm,
scarred by wind,
their feet tangled in the hush of stone and season.

Eighty feet tall, and still they lean gently—
not from weakness,
but from knowing
how to bend without breaking.

They’ve watched the trail appear and vanish,
heard the small talk of hikers
and the silence that follows
when no one returns.

Winters pressed ice into their ribs,
summers pulled water from their veins.
Still, they drank the light
and let the moss make homes in their shade.

You don’t ask questions here.
The answers come slowly,
folded into shadow and filtered sun—
a kind of knowing you feel
in the base of your spine.

No sermon but presence.
No altar but the soil.
Only the wisdom of waiting,
of bearing witness,
of still being rooted
after everything has tried to move you.