Marie Anne 

face the fear

Are you afraid now?

Fear is the mentor.

I tried to grow familiar

with these trembling sensations,

an echo singing through my body.

At times, I thought nothing could reach me,

that nothing ever would.

Wouldn’t I rather sit

beside the trees at night,

sit in the darkened place—

deader than autumn leaves,

where at least all the roots gather? /

Wouldn’t I rather sit

with the song?

I am where all displacement begins,

in an instant, in contact

with all my family—who is me. /

The path fades,

and I am there,

ankle-deep in fallen leaves,

the air thick with damp earth,

like the moment after rain,

like something you forgot you needed.

I think I’m lost,

but the trees tell me otherwise:

their leaves shiver in the wind,

and the way the light bends

between their trunks

makes everything feel like a secret.

I have spent years building

a person from the dreams of others;

the scaffolding of praise, of expectation—

but here, the forest strips it away.

It strips me down to what is essential:

the sound of breath,

the pulse in my wrists,

the soft murmur of things

I buried long ago. /

When you look up,

there is only green upon green,

and a silence so deep

you could fall into it.

And so I do,

letting myself sink into the stillness,

the way a stone finds its place

at the bottom of a stream. /

It is impossible to be lost here—

you realize that now,

because where you are

is all there is,

and wherever you go, it will be the same.

Isolation is not loneliness;

it is my gift.

The chatter of the world

dissolves like ash,

leaving me here, in the clear light. /

A cold, tempered morning in the forest.

The shriek of birds and then—

three piercing notes

from a canary.

The song of nature,

a mother’s lullaby. /

My trembling body,

a road transmuted;

roots or veins.

Marie Anne Arreola is a bilingual poet, editor, and screenwriter whose work explores the entanglements between language, spirit, and digital culture. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of VOCES, a bilingual creative platform featuring over 40 interviews with international artists.