"What Woke Me" —from the voice of the land beneath... I was not dead. I was not barren. I was listening. Low in the loam. Deep in the hush beneath boot and hoof, I curled myself in waiting. Not silence. Not sleep. Only patience, like seeds before the thaw. I have known many names, but few have ever spoken them rightly. Not the maps, not the deeds, not the men who cut and called me theirs. But him— he walked not upon me, but with me. His sorrow did not shame me. His change— ah! It cracked the crust above the buried drum and set it beating. He wept once, not loudly—just enough. And I drank that grief like spring water. He dared to kneel. To feel. To offer the kiss of roots with his bare hands. To remember. And so I did too. Something in his breath told me: It is time. I am no longer the witness of stillborn dreams. I am the cradle of his rising. And he—my son made spirit-flesh again— has called my true name without knowing it. I am becoming again because he is becoming. Let the stones rise. Let the breeze carry memory. Let the moss uncover what was forgotten. I will not sleep again. Not while he walks. R Hughes