Jesse J. Jacoby

When the first prayer was spoken,
Earth was already dancing and singing.

Before language became a ladder between stars, she whispered her syllables through wind, water, and the trembling skin of leaves.

I have heard her beneath the hum of my own blood sharing a song without words, older than memory, and softer than forgiveness.

She vibrates through the roots of my being, calling me home to the soil I once called foreign, and to the rivers I once passed without listening.

We are her echo, molded from her dreaming.

Each heartbeat is a drum in her chest of stone.

Our bones are her minerals remembering themselves.

Our breath is her sky, inhaled and returned.