The battle didn’t last long, but it proved the war
She’d suspected it, felt the pangs and fury of a fight
But never knew it was like this.
A pilgrimage of the soul isn’t a walk in the park, you know.
The fiercest fighting was hers alone.
Others pointed, but the the creeping vines and vegetation were hers to cut
The wild jungle was always growing, twisting,
Dank as a spring house,
vicious as a broken promise
From the field it raged, I am the jungle!
I am made of death! My vines of despair!
My floor of rotting corpses!
But it was silent when she entered.
She would not have gone into the jungle
But they depended on her
and they gave her a machete.
The battle was slow and terrifying at first.
But she found the vines could be cut
The bodies could gently be lifted and placed aside at rest.
She slashed and cleared until her arms gave out but a path had emerged
It called out to her as she walked home through the field, “I am the jungle of your fears! You made me! I cannot be destroyed!”
She smiled and remembered its silence during the fight, and knew.
The jungle didn’t hate her
It loved her
It was calling her back,
begging her to tend the corpses, cut the vines
And build a simple cabin among the branches
The jungle was her real home.
The war would last a lifetime
But she had a machete.
And the jungle had been silent.
