I touched a tree and I remembered Pan.

I touched a tree and remembered Pan.

My hand melted through the bark, the wood carved its way around me, veins and arteries stretching up to the canopy. I can feel a nymph, a spirit, the tree. Her heart throbs for that forgotten god. God of the wild. God long lost. Lost long ago.

Pan whispered in my ears. They were ready to listen to him, anyway. They were open, searching for the sounds of the forest.

I managed to convince myself that I heard my friend the squirrel again. I never used to know that squirrels could be red. I was used to the grey vermin if the city, not these drops of rubies in the trees.

She wasn’t there, my squirrel.

The trees kept whispering to each other but I no longer spoke their language.

My clasp on the bark hardened, I saw my fingers grow, intertwined with the branches.

Am I Daphne? But a helpless nymph chased to the rim of the trees, begging the river for help?

No. I am not Daphne. I am a wanderer, listening.

They say Pan disappeared. Satyrs went searching for him far and wide. But none of that is true. Pan just disappeared for those who weren’t searching.

If you sit. If you touch. If you move around without a sound. If you watch. If you feel. If you breathe.

If you just listen to the air. To the trees. To all of it.

You’ll hear him. Just the slightest change in note, a trembling melody, almost too shy to be heard.

Only heard by those who listen.

Pan is a long lost god, lost long ago.

but

I touched a tree and remembered Pan.