Morrow Point

Mackenzie Sains

Somewhere, not far from where you are now, there is a stirring. A child is born, the dawn breaks open, a flag is flown, a prayer commences, a pen creates a world. Somewhere, sleeping inside the seeds of your heart, there is a voice whispering of the world in which you have come from. Maybe, once, you’ve heard this story before. Maybe, soon, you’ll feel the ghost of it as you pass by a sturdy tree one evening with your dog. Maybe, you’ll notice how the light shines up from under the petals creamy white like fresh milk, how the branches are perfectly suspended over the sidewalk, how strong and generous this tree has been—here—and somehow, you’ve only just now noticed. Maybe you’ll reach out a hand and in your reaching out, you’ll feel that tree reach back out towards you. In a world surrounded by the dying, the disenfranchised, and the dispossessed, it will be the living that glows like a torch flame in the dark illuminating the path forward. It’s a story as ancient as Life.

Mackenzie Sains is a poet, writer, and dreamer living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina where she loves to farm and camp. She received her MFA in Poetry from Western Colorado University in July 2025.