Echo Overlook

There's a trail that winds beyond the last fence post
past birches and maples,
where pine trees bend with the wind,
and every footstep breaks the silence.

Through green cathedral light,
trees open like a vaulted ceiling
and the world drops off into sky.

Echo Overlook.

A crown of stone above the river's ribbon,
where hawks glide silent in widening spirals
and the world stops.

I used to go there with clenched fists,
swallowed by something too big for words,
too sharp for tears.
I would shout until my voice
broke into pieces
and flung itself
back at me
again
and again —
not answers,
just proof I was still making sound.

No one could hear me.
No one needed to.

It was enough to let the mountain hold my rage,
to hurl it like a stone
into that vast and waiting blue
and know it would not shatter the world.

Years have passed since I went there.
The woods have likely changed,
grown thicker or forgotten the path by now.
But sometimes
in the brittle pause between dreams,
I feel it calling.

And I wonder
what I would shout
if I went there again.