The Beech Tree
"I need to feel safe."Faint murmurs of secrets kept for many years penetrate the whirling shadows of my wailing mind.
You are always welcome here.
My hands find the shallow groove worn smooth in the patient bark. I don't even have to look as I swing myself onto springy boughs and up the familiar route to where the thicker branches will cradle me. My mind is free to cry on.
"I need you."
I am here.
And then a cool grey-green presence wraps itself around my awareness. My mind calms a bit, enough to breathe in the safe scent of the soothing beech bark.
"I need to go a bit higher."
Don't hurt yourself.
"I won't." I never have. I've never fallen from a tree in my life.
I climb on, winding sinuously up the smooth trunk, standing on branches thinner than my thumb, knowing this tree will never let me drop.
"This is good."
It is good.
I wrap my arms around the trunk, resting my cheek against its cool surface, letting the tree heal my shuddering mind, bruised body, clouded soul.
Tell me what is wrong.
The tears drift slowly from my mind to the corners of my eyes, filling to the center despite my struggles to repress them.
"Hard times. Changes. Life."
Hard times and changes are a part of life, but if it is life you fear, that is something else entirely.
"I do not fear life." A pause. "Or living."
Hard times pass. It is change you fear?
"I...don't know. It's...everything is moving too fast, much too fast."
I see. Time passes differently when you are a tree.
"I envy you sometimes."
Don't.
Time passes, and for now, it passes equally for both of us. My breathing slows, my mind and soul clear a little, but the tears remain in my eyes.
It is someone you love who is changing.
More tears. I nod.
More than one someone?
Another nod. Another wave of tears which I fight to keep in my eyes.
I see. But you know...these changes have to happen. Even I cannot stop change, however long I may stand against them. Even the strongest, the wisest, the bravest, must accept changes.
One tear creeps from my right eye. I let it fall onto the branch by my chin, watching as the tree accepts and absorbs the moisture---another secret kept by the greatest master of silence.
"You keep all my secrets."
I keep the secrets of many.
The tears are receeding now. I begin the descent back down to the thick, cradling branches.
"Sometimes I think you know me and understand me better than anyone else in the world."
A soft, low, green chuckle, full of life and sap and wisdom, echoes through the pit of my consciousness.
I have more wisdom than your life has had minutes. But we trees must pass on our wisdom to others, just as humans do. It's just that we have more to share.
A smile freshens my mind and lifts a few more of my damp sorrows.
"I love you."
I know.
Words by PoeticProcrastination
Read 1670 times
Written on 2006-05-31 at 04:15
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