Healing Cycles

RADIX
by Jane Yolen

Here in the midst
of my long life,
still a bit unrooted
from our dark year
when the sun gave us
no opinions,
but no conversation either,
for we lived indoors
afraid of what might root
inside us if we went out.

And now, when the doors
open wide, a single step
into the outside
seems fraught with questions
we are afraid we might inhale.

Have we become so unrooted
from nature’s bounty
that we have no growth at all?
Or are we just children
taking those first short steps
until we can once again
run full-throated and howling
into the fields and forests
of our own minds.