They didn’t speak at first.
That was the first thing Poppy noticed — how the silence didn’t feel awkward or heavy, just… held. Pocahontas Hale moved about the clearing like she’d already measured the space between them and found it right. She set a kettle near the coals, adjusted a log with her boot, brushed her fingers across a bundle of drying leaves like she was checkin’ on old friends.
Poppy stood there unsure what to do with her hands. She’d expected questions. Or explanations. Or maybe some great emotional rush she couldn’t prepare for.
None of that came.
Instead, Hale handed her a tin cup without lookin’ at her.
“Drink,” she said. “Don’t think about it.”
Poppy did. The tea was bitter at first, then warm, then oddly familiar — like somethin’ she’d known before she had words for it.
They sat. Fire cracklin’. Cypress stretched out nearby. Somewhere farther off, a bird gave a sharp call and went quiet again.
“You can stay as long as you need,” Hale said finally. Not askin’. Not invitin’. Just statin’ it the way mountains state where they stand.
Poppy nodded. Her throat felt tight, but not in a way that wanted cryin’.
Hale watched her a moment — not her face exactly, but the way she held herself. The way she leaned forward when the fire popped. The way her foot traced slow half-circles in the dirt like it was tryin’ to remember a path.
“You got questions,” Hale said.
“Too many,” Poppy answered.
Hale huffed a quiet laugh. “Good. Means you’re payin’ attention.”
That settled somethin’ between them.
They sat again, long enough the day shifted. Long enough the woods decided they weren’t a threat. Long enough for the ground to warm under Poppy’s palms when she leaned down and picked up a stick without knowin’ why.
She dragged it through the dirt.
Once.
Twice.
Over and over.
Not drawing anything in particular.
Just making lines and rubbing them out again.
And that’s when she spoke.
“Why people always want more?”
Her eyes stayed on the ground.
Pocahontas Hale didn’t answer right away. She watched the way the child’s hand moved — quick, then slow — like it was listening for something before it knew what to ask.
“More what?” Hale said at last.
“More being,” Poppy said. “Like they gotta go somewhere else to matter.”
Hale nodded once, like that made sense.
She reached down, scooped a little soil, and let it slip through her fingers.
“You see this?” she said. “That dirt’s been a lot of things already. Leaf. Root. Bone. It ain’t worried about being finished.”
Poppy finally looked up.
Hale pointed toward the trees at the edge of the clearing.
“People look at those and think they’re standing alone. Big. Quiet. Mindin’ themselves.”
She shook her head.
“That’s just what the top shows.”
She tapped the ground with two fingers.
“Under here, everybody’s talking.”
Poppy squinted. “I don’t hear nothin’.”
“That’s because you’re hearing,” Hale said. “Listening comes later.”
She settled herself down on a stump, slow and easy.
“Hearing’s when sound passes through you. Listening’s when you notice what’s being given.”
She waited a beat, then went on.
“One tree gets too much sun, it makes shade. One gets weak, the others send food. One’s done living, it gives itself back so something else can start.”
Poppy frowned. “So they don’t keep it?”
Hale smiled, small.
“A thing that keeps everything don’t stay long.”
The wind moved through the leaves, soft but steady.
“Plants don’t try to be special,” Hale said. “They just do their part. That’s enough.”
Poppy kicked at the dirt. “What about important people? Like Jesus.”
Hale nodded. “He knelt down.”
“What about Buddha?”
“Sat still long enough to see he wasn’t separate.”
Poppy went quiet again.
“So… they wasn’t tryin’ to get away?” she asked.
Hale leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.
“No,” she said. “They were tryin’ to get people to come back.”
“Back where?”
Hale gestured all around them.
“Here. To each other. To the ground under their feet.”
She stood and brushed her hands together.
“People get confused. They think life’s about lasting. Plants know better.”
“What do they know?” Poppy asked.
Hale looked at her, eyes steady and kind.
“They know life moves through us, not from us. You give what you can while you’re here. Then you make room.”
She tipped Poppy’s chin up with one finger.
“That ain’t losing yourself. That’s joining the whole.”
Poppy nodded slow, like something had settled where it belonged.
Hale smiled then, wider this time.
“You listen like that,” she said, “and you won’t ever feel alone — even when you’re by yourself.”
She turned toward the darker stretch of woods beyond the clearing, where the trees grew closer and the air felt thicker with things unsaid.
“And once you start listenin’,” Hale added, “the land’s gonna start answerin’. Not all at once. Not kindly. But honest.”
Poppy followed her gaze, heart thudding — not with fear, but with recognition.
Somewhere deeper in the forest, a branch snapped.
And something that had been listening far longer than either of them shifted its weight, ready to be known.
Granny Woman 
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