On my way home, a woman dressed in green approaches me and hands me an envelope. She says the envelope contains a letter from my estranged mother. I tell her it must be a mistake because I live with my mother and spoke with her no more than an hour ago. But the woman insists that the letter is indeed addressed to me. I open the envelope which contains nothing but a dry leaf. On the back of the leaf, it is inscribed:

I'm waiting for you to come back home.
Your loving mother,
The forest.

stump —
in every ring
an old storm’s story

An ekphrastic haibun based on Toyen’s painting ‘The Message Of The Forest (1936)