Shinrin-Yoku

Lyrics

No, not for walking. Not for getting somewhere. Just for this.

They strapped the monitor to my wrist. A small, cold fact. Said my heart rate variability was... poor. The city's signature. A signature of karoshi in the making. I came here with the noise still buzzing under my skin. A stranger at the gate of the Akasawa Forest. Nineteen eighty-two. A new word for an old cure.

Shinrin-yoku.
They call it bathing. You don't get wet. You just... breathe. You breathe in the medicine the hinoki cypress makes for itself. The phytoncides. An aerosol prescription. A slow, green tide washing the inside clean.

My pulse, a frantic bird in a cage, begins to slow. I can see the numbers fall on the little screen. Dr. Qing Li said the forest is the therapist. He measured the air. He counted the natural killer cells, waking from their sleep. This isn't poetry. It's immunology. The scent of wood and damp earth. My own breath, finally deep enough to reach the bottom.

Shinrin-yoku.
They call it bathing. You don't get wet. You just... breathe. You breathe in the armor the ancient trees exhale. The phytoncides. An aerosol prescription. A slow, green tide washing the inside clean.

And the body, this foreign country I live in, remembers something. A rhythm older than clocks. A peace that doesn't need to be earned. 
Every breath a conversation. The trees are the co-therapists, whispering in a language of volatile compounds. Lower the cortisol. Let the defenses rise. Stand still. Just be.

The monitor is off now. I walk back towards the road. But the slowness stays. A trace of cypress in my throat. My heart, a quiet and steady drum. 
Bathed.