Baba Yaga The Wise

Listen, children of the crooked road.

You stand in the same room

and swear you are standing in different worlds.

One of you says the sky is falling.

One of you says the sky is rising.

One of you says there is no sky at all.

And all of you—

all of you—

are certain you are right.

You carry your truths like old bones in a sack.

Your mother put some there.

Your father put some there.

The church stuffed a few in while you were kneeling.

The government slipped some in while you were sleeping.

The television poured glitter over the whole pile

and told you it was gold.

And so you walk around

arguing about the shape of the bones

as if any of you carved them yourselves.

Two lovers lie in the same bed

dreaming two completely different dreams.

Two siblings share a childhood

and remember two entirely different houses.

Two nations stand on the same earth

and swear the ground belongs only to them.

Ahh…

Baba Yaga has watched this for centuries.

Humans arguing over mirrors.

Each one shouting

THIS is the real face!

while staring into glass warped by their own breath.

No wonder the world feels mad.

No wonder no one agrees.

You are all describing the forest

from different sides of the trees.

But listen carefully now, little wanderers.

Under every argument

under every story

under every frightened attempt to be right

there is a seed.

A small stubborn seed.

Hope.

The quiet knowledge that somewhere

beneath the shouting

beneath the illusions

beneath the bones and glitter

there is soil.

And if you are brave enough

to set down your sacks

to stop insisting your mirror is the only mirror

you might finally kneel together

in the same dirt

and plant something new.

And that, children,

is where the real world begins.

— Baba Yaga,

who has seen many forests burn

and many seeds survive. 🌱🔥