We are trees.
Yes, all of us.
Living season to season,
gaining nourishment from the soil.
Air our very life breath.
Yes, we are trees.
Like branches, our arms
reach out wide in ecstatic embrace of the splendor of this earth.
Like roots, we ground
ourselves in what has meaning, a sense of stability.
Our torsos are the trunks,
our blood - the xylem and
phloem that course and flow.
Skin, bark.
Leaves, hands that gather
what is outside of us to our insides.
Fall colors are the
adornments we wear to celebrate seasons.
Winter’s barren limbs
mirror to us the deaths and challenges, the losses and transitions, the
conflicts and mortal nature of our lives.
But spring opens us to the
beautiful suppleness, the durability through those torrents that return us to
ourselves. We blossom in thickly petaled white flowers and with our branch-arms
spread wide, we create a safe haven for all who rest underneath us.
We extend ourselves in the
summer to bear for those respite-seekers the heat of the sun, placing ourselves
between sun and dirt so that shade is formed.
In the autumn again we
blaze: crimson and gold swatches, so fire-like. And we bear the winds,
filtering them through our singing leaves and limbs,
so that all below us are
spared the brunt and force of it all.
Thick hides, thick skin,
the ability to stand tall no matter what adversity blows our way.
We are cornerstones of
nonhuman communities and of the peopled places as well.
We drip in the rain, we
become statues in the icy snows, we sway to springtime’s revelry of bud to
blossom to leaf. We hear whispers of romance and children’s giggles as summer
moves forward to grace us with long days of luscious light.
We are bristlecone – wide,
stalwart – ancient ones hidden in secret coves in the obscure mountainways of
California.
We are elms, oaks. And
maples flowing sugar through our veins in spring, mediator between the sun’s
heat and the humans who tromp in grasses near where we stand.
We are teak and banana
trees from the tropics;
We are the kapok of
Africa, the yew of Europe, the bamboo of Asia, eucalyptus of Australia, the
rubber tree of South America,
And we are the fossilized
impressions of possible-trees from early Triassic times in Antarctica.
Blessed are we, we trees,
we lover of trees. For we feel in trees the resonance of ourselves, the mirror
that reminds us how we are rooted and strong, vulnerable in the face of change,
resilient always – especially when we remember our inextricable interconnection
with trees, with all nonhuman living beings.
When we re-member this
connection, we re-member our own seasons and splendor.
All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2016 JenniferJWilhoit/TEALarbor stories. AllRightsReserved."
