What happens when you leave a place?
Do the memories peel
off the walls
with paint
turning to dust,
swept away
by new hands every morning?
Do the trees weep?
Do they shed their leaves
as tears?
Do the flowers stop blooming
because you are not there
to watch them anymore?
Do the insects stop
walking because they don't
need to run away from
your feet anymore?
Where do the secrets
you whispered to trees go?
Do they fall off the bark
or do they grow into new shoots,
spreading your roots in the ground?
Does the earth still remember?
Does it continue to hold
traces
of footsteps you left behind?
Will the wind still remember your voice?
Will you be able
to remember where you came from
if it did not remember you?