The Well

I wander through shrouded trees.
Their branches tremble with old memory,
murmuring stories I was never born to see.
Wisdom spun of sorrow, joy, and something older still.

Mist gathers on their leaves,
turning them to silver in the newborn light.
They speak in a woven chorus:

Listen, child.

A turning waits upon your path,
and no map is meant to guide you.
Follow where the first path bends,
then where the next slips into shadow.
Seek the well hidden almost from sight.
When you find it—look within.

The forest hushes as I walk,
and the well emerges
like a forgotten thought at the edge of waking.

I lean over its trembling circle.
A darkness breathes below,
a depth no eye could ever hold.

I feel it then:
This well is my soul,
unvisited, unattended,
left to its shadows as the years slipped by.

On brittle grass
lies a bucket, its rope soft with age.
I lower it slowly into the unseen,
waiting for whatever truth might rise.

The rope grows slack.
A far, hollow tremor echoes upward.

The well is dry.

The forest exhales its grief through me.
A tight, ancient stirring rises within.
The trees bow their patient heads,
and we weep together.
A rare, holy unravelling.

I lie beside the well,
the earth cradling my tired body.
Sleep gathers over me
like a long-awaited mercy.

For a well cannot hold water
until its keeper remembers.

When I wake,
a glint of light waits in the bucket.
a flicker as delicate as breath.
I lift it carefully:
a letter worn soft by time,
addressed to me.

Inside, the words shimmer:
This well is not your destination.
Follow the path into deeper trees.
You will hear your destiny
before it shows itself,
a sound like home remembered.

You will know you have arrived
when the waters call you in.

Your path is not the water trapped here,
but the source,
the living spring that never tires,
never hides.

When you find it,
do not merely drink.

Leap,

and let the river carry you
where you were always meant to go.