Over and Over Again

On the first day of its life, it falls 200 feet. Needles and twigs soften its landing, and it becomes another piece of the forest floor. A seed, eager to grow.

Years pass and the seedling begins to rise. For the first time, it sees its home. A quilt of green lays over the earth, and from this quilt, giants rise to the heavens. Despite its elders, the canopy grants the seedling light. The giants sway in the blustering winds above. A storm passes through. The trees filter rain through their needles, falling in little drops to the children sheltered under their arms. The seedling raises its mouth to the sky and drinks. It is lucky in that it gets to grow.

By its tenth year, the sapling reaches above the clusters of ferns and moss-covered logs. It begins to understand the full weight of change. The tree stands full in the summer, yet smothered in the winter. It loses its first limb and mourns the loss. But come spring, the tree grows taller and stronger. With each passing year, the tree better understands it must lose to gain.

A century old now, the tree has seen the forest grow and decay. The crown watches the shifting tides of a distant ocean. It has become a home to generations of owls; it has become the final resting place for an elk. The sun rises and sets, the moon waxes and wanes, and the tree still stands.

By its three hundredth year, new creatures walk the forest. They stand like a tree, taller than they are wider. They only have two limbs, but they can move them however they please. The forest watches as they pass through. Deer freeze with their eyes wide, birds hover high above. The tree feels the new creatures walk over the seeds and roots buried deep within the soft humus.

The earth wounds. The earth heals. Nature releases another breath, and summer arrives. The forest hears its first gunshot. Birds launch themselves into the sky, squirrels scamper under logs, deer flee. The trees remain. They must bear the brunt of this new presence. 

The tree stands three hundred twenty-two years old when the first of its siblings fall. Wherever these creatures go, a path of destruction follows. Despite the forest thriving on its own, here a millennia before their arrival on this continent, these foreign bodies have decided it is theirs. But the forest continues to give. The fungi continue to cleanse. The clouds continue to pour. The trees continue to breathe. Selflessness, exhibited over and over and over again.

It is lucky in that it gets to decline. A slow, easy decay. The tree becomes something humans cannot comprehend. Mushrooms climb the trunk, foxes burrow beneath, insects crawl within. The tree takes on a new role. Grazing five hundred years rooted to this earth, the tree gives the world its last breath, and finally pours itself back into its home. And as the creatures move deeper into the wilderness, the forest can only hope they will do the same. Giving back, just as they were given to.