somewhere a river
refuses to apologize for resting in the shade
the old tree at the edge of the field
leans into wind for decades
and when the wind is quiet
it won’t fill the silence
with anything
we were taught
that the silent pauses between notes
aren’t at all musical
but they are
there are forces older than our busyness
older than the word for tired
that have been asking us
to put it down
long before we learned to pick so much up
what would fall
if you let your arms go soft
if you trusted the ground to hold
for just a handful of breaths
some bodies have forgotten
what safe feels like in stillness
not from weakness
but because the world made rest
a thing they had to earn
and the earning never ended
this isn’t a small thing
to lay the weight of your seeing down
to close the eyes and trust
the sounds around you to continue
without your supervision
but when we see it
something in us
recognizes it
the way a stream recognizes water
ease is contagious
this is the whole lesson
there is a kind of courage
that looks like nothing
from the outside
—lyra moon (unlearning the debt of rest)
march 24, 2026