Listen: there are birds
in the train station, creaking
from the rafters

like the swing set
you once flew from,
singing to the sky,

your voice high and clear.
The forest teaches
where to look—even when

it’s far away, pretend
leaves overhead.
Watch them flicker

like pigeons, flutter-hungry
and quick. In the station,
people pass, plastic

on their arms thanking them
for shopping.
You want to tell them

about the language of birds,
trees, and angels—that each
burl born from injury

makes a hidden map.
That we are all
we need. But it’s all

too much,
what we've taken. 
What is left. Listen:

along the highway,
there’s a forest
no person has walked

and you, only you,
can hear it.

Rachel Dillon is a teacher, poet, and book reviewer. She is the book events and programming manager at Beacon Hill Books and Cafe, an independent bookstore in Boston. Rachel has received support from the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference and the Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship. She was a finalist for the Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize and Manchester Cathedral Poetry Competition. Her work can be found in the Asheville Poetry Review, Publishers Weekly, Broadsided Press, Solstice Literary Magazine, and at her website: rachelmdillon.com.