I do not remember
being created.
I remember
only being.
I awoke
within a shell.
It held me
completely.
So completely
I believed
nothing existed
beyond it.
Then,
without warning,
the shell became
too small.
I could not tell
whether it was breaking,
or whether I was.
The soil received me.
It asked for everything.
It kept nothing.
It took my shell.
Then it took me.
I thought
I had been buried.
Others called it
being planted.
I still do not know
the difference.
The soil never
explained itself.
It simply continued
its quiet work.
It consumed
what I had been
until I could
no longer tell
where the seed
ended
and something else
began.
Part of me
went downward.
Part of me
reached upward.
I had never seen
either direction.
Yet neither
felt like a choice.
The root
entered darkness.
The shoot
entered light.
Neither asked
which was greater.
Both continued.
Seasons passed.
The shell was gone.
Then I was gone.
Where,
there had been a seed,
there stood a tree.
Others called it
growth.
I could not.
I never remembered
becoming a tree.
I only remember
ceasing to be a seed.
Rain came.
Leaves became soil.
Soil fed roots.
Roots became trunk.
Trunk became branch.
Branch became fruit.
Fruit became seed.
Nothing kept
its form.
Everything kept
its place.
The birds
sang of the forest.
The wind
moved through it.
I became
its roots.
Its trunk.
Its branches.
Its fruit.
Yet I never saw
the forest.
Perhaps no seed
ever does.
Then, one day,
a seed fell beside me.
Its shell
was whole.
Its silence
was familiar.
I wanted to tell it
something.
The soil had taught me
where.
It had taught me
when.
It had taught me
how.
It never taught me
why.
No root had
carried that answer.
No bird had
sung it.
No leaf had
written it.
I only know
there was a beginning.
Silence.