Casting My Vote

Casting my vote,
I leave the municipal office

and go to the woods
at the edge of town

in the place
too rocky
and swampy

for the colonizers
to settle and plant

where now a feral forest grows.

Falling to my knees
before the quivering blossom,

I breathe deeply,
inhaling the scent
of the world before
and the scent
of the world to come.

Woven into the understory,
I remember my true nature
and my true names
and where my loyalties lie.

_____________________________________

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