Tuesday, August 28, 2012

The Tree


The Tree

It was born of the wafting of winds of the air; a storm brought it to its final home.  Slowly it drifted down to the ground, as the heat of the sun radiated of the black earth.  Then it burrowed into the earth, slowly pushing its fingers into the ground, touching life, feeling power, and the cold relief of water in its roots. It sat there for a bit, swaddled in the loving embrace of its parents, the journey had been long and perilous, and its desperate plunge into the soil had consumed much of its energy.

It rested for a long time, time did not have much meaning to the young seed, all it knew was that it was safe. Safe and then a pain, and then its covering broke, and it felt the pain of birth for the first time.  Its roots expanded, and grew bigger then they have ever felt before, it now felt the urge to dig out of the cold earth and touch the sun for first time ever. The roots grabbed water and food all in a sudden chronic need to break the surface, and take its first breath of air ever. It took time, rocks covered it, other plants tried to choke it, but in time it forced its leaves into the air for the first time and breathed a deep breath of air, a breath of relief after being trapped for so long underground it was free.

It’s leaves caught the sunlight, drinking in spherules of energy, and pushing it deep into its teenage body. The body grew and grew as the months wound on, until the cold of winter touched it.  It was a new experience for the tree, and yet bound up in its very being it had met this particular enemy before, and knew how to deal with its embrace. It shed its leaves, the teenager growing to adult, losing all it had gained since the first growth, it’s roots burrowed deep, and slowly the tree slept, until the winter had passed, and once more it spread its leaves toward to the air, once more it tried to grow to touch the sky. It grew and grew through the season, until it once more encountered the winter, now it did not feel the fear it felt before, and let the leaves fall without a struggle.

It grew and grew, until it passed from its teenage years to its adult. It now had many holes in it, from the creatures which made their home in its foliage. They huddled in it to shelter against the arctic blasts of the north, and so the tree now was a kind of mother itself to other life.  The adopted children at times helped it, and other times hindered it, yet still the tree sheltered them all. It’s longing grew for children of its own despite its adopted children.

The longing grew and grew over the months, until one happy day it sprouted flowers from its leaves, and from these flowers came her children in the pollen borne within them. Some of its adopted children took her real children far away from her, some the air took as she had been taken from her parents. She birthed many more children as the seasons passed, some of them lived some died, yet never did she know their story.  

There came a time when the tree had grown large and strong, there was a time it had children, there was a time when the winter first touched her. The time passed, her adopted children came for her first, eating her insides, then the sky turned against her, and the lightning blasted her. The great fire came next, and then burned her wooden bones.  Slowly she breathed her last, and ground rose up around her, and took the tree into the place it had begun its journey. No bards sung of her, no children grieved her, but the tree had lived its life well and perhaps that was enough.

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