Two small warm creatures came to rest against my roots today, shed from the feet of a walking one who lay back in my shade and closed his eyes. Empty now, they held the shape of him: the toes curled up, the heels worn thin on one side, the way water wears a stone that leans always the same direction.
He had gone very far in them. I could smell the many grounds they had crossed, dust that was not my dust, rain from other skies, and I thought, as I always think of the walking ones, how strange it is to wear the road on your feet rather than let the road grow up through you.
He slept. A wren scolded from my lower branch. The light moved across him a little, the way it moves across everything, and he did not notice, and he did not stay.
When he woke he pulled the small warm creatures back onto his feet and stood, and I felt the old ache I feel for all of them, that they must carry their staying with them, folded and worn and never quite fitting, instead of putting a root down and letting a hundred springs teach them who they are.
He walked off between the far trees. I have seen the walking ones return, sometimes, gray now and slow, to lie again where they lay young. I do not know if he will be one of those. The shoes will wear through long before he tires of leaving. And I will still be here, spreading a little wider each wet year, holding this patch of shade open for whoever lies down in it next, wearing the ground I was given, going nowhere, going deep.