The razor cold breeze whipped at the small child.

For the tall pines grew below the cliff—no help--

And offered their apologies in their own way,

Filling the air with their sharp centric scent

And swaying like an ocean of green in the wind.

 

But, that day, the boy could not tell trees from tears,

And he could not smell aught but what he tasted:

Just copper and salt (from the fall he had taken).

All thoughts of crying out had ceased, escaping

With the air in his lungs upon meeting the earth.

 

Suddenly he was scooped up, gently whisked away

To lie beside a hearth as his mother made tea

And wrapped his hands in shredded strips of cloth.

The warm stone floor radiated its lazy heat

As he shut his eyes to embrace a dream.