Daily, it seems as if the world is crumbling and we are destroying one another, tearing at each other's throats even as we tear ourselves apart. Is this the rest of life as we know it? Or is this a reality - and has always been a reality - that we only soberly realize and acknowledge the farther we edge into adulthood? That to grow old is to grow weary, to sink slowly into these tired bodies in this tired world.
When I grow weary, I find myself staring at trees. I need to go anywhere with greenery, with tall quiet trees that do nothing but stretch into the sky with their invisible roots anchoring them as they have done before I arrived and will continue to do long after I depart. I find solace in considering the trees. There they stand, silent and stoic except for the occasional gentle rustle with the right breeze. Their branches bend with the wind, they sway in the storms, they shed all their leaves and stand naked for months only to push through the pain of growing buds and blossoms to be swathed in leaves when summer comes. Year after year, season after season, they endure. Even when the earth is scorched and they are burned, somehow, some of the trees persevere. And survive.
* * * * *
I wrote this poem a couple of years ago and revisit when I find myself worrying and overthinking everything.
And all the trees of the field will clap their hands
How do the trees know to grow with such grace
The way they splay and bend and stretch
Dancing to the pulse of unheard strains
In perfect time and syncopation
