The scent of pine oozed into my lungs like smooth melting sugar as I walked through the recently rain-bathed forest. The crisp green and earthly tones of nature suggested emotive tales of imagination, dating to, or rather pointing to a timeless memory of home where my heart swelled with blissful sweetness and emanated with self-indulging love.

I laid upon the wet pine straw; a bed once dreamt ‘mid the forest clearing. Although the late afternoon sun radiated through the nearby droplets suspending from all around, traces of storm clouds hung above the glade to shelter me with their coolness.

The sound of the dancing river to the north and the whistling mockingbirds cast the trance of a tribal enchantment, serving together as gatekeepers into the subtler realms of being. Little eyes peeked out curiously through the angles adjacent to the forest’s gleam in this in-between, desirous to know who came to drowse amidst their digs.

Blending softly in the breeze, the whispers and hushed words of the forest denizens became swirls of their resolve to welcome me. Their lulling touch reminisced about the weaving threads where wanderers and spirits met for ecstatic frolic in the fold of freedom borne by the young hearts of jolly children.