I’d like to be the sky when it burns at dusk or the moon glowing in starlight above

I’d like to be a licorice fern perched high on a maple tree Or a leaf, grown from roots falling to meet them slowly

I’d like to be a songbird waiting for Spring or the forest floor when it starts to rain

or the moss that climbs for generations between a rotting stump and the canopy

a fallen branch a drop on a leaf water trickling in a mountain stream

branches creak in the coming breeze and all I can think is “I’d like to be”