I didn't earn it at first.
Love was like wind.
I could sense it all around her,
but I could not see any use for it.

Still, with patience, we walked
in tall stands of trees together.
Ones that had been there for so long,
red-barked and towering with wisdom.

The branches quivered and stirred
as we passed their anchored homes.
Murmurs perhaps, of their discontent with me.

I reached out to feel the deep crevices
furrowed in the rough and weathered bark.
Counsel, it seemed, for a fool.

The Redwoods all around us whispered
through a restless and knowing breeze,
“Let her in and don’t look back.”