It’s so soothing to walk among the trees
on paths knotted with their roots
and blanketed with their leaves
to feel them charging the air with ease —
it feels like floating in a pool of deep rich green.
But I feel a tinge of sadness too —
once the world belonged to trees.
We were only their guests, as I am now,
walking in their shadows
sucking like babies at their fruit.
We only saw the sky through their branches.
Tender mothers, the source of life —
why did we need gods when we could worship trees?
But then we grew hungry for autonomy
and rejected their easy fruit.
We stepped out of the shadows and cleared a space
to grind our crops out of the ground.
Jealous of their effortless dominion
we slashed and burned them down
like Columbus tearing through the New World
amazed at how easily they fell at our feet.
And now we think the earth is ours.
These trees don’t seem to care —
the sadness is mine, not theirs.
They have time, they’re content to wait,
until we realize that autonomy is an illusion
that identity can’t survive without being shared;
until we remember that we’re still their guests —
or don’t remember and leave the world to them again —
a broken world that will heal in time
back into primal harmony.