I drew this morning in an incredible garden. I felt guilty that I was not at a demonstration. Every leaf, every flower, reminded me what it is to be alive, not to think, but to sprout, to feel, to search for a place, a bed, or the space between a rock and a hard place.

Passage

Every leaf that falls
never stops falling. I once
thought that leaves were leaves.
Now I think they are feeling,
in search of a place—
someone’s hair, a park bench, a 
finger. Isn’t that
like us, going from place to
place, looking to be alive?

—Victoria Chang, “Passage” from The Trees Witness Everything, copyright © Copper Canyon Press, 2022.