Old Tree

Old Tree had stood tall and strong for centuries.  He was gnarled and knotted.  He could feel the ages in his great branches and stout trunk.  There was not a sense of surprise to be had by Old Tree, for all things had come and gone so many times that a slow and steady pattern had begun to reveal itself.  Animals made their homes in the crooks between branches and on high, lookout twigs.  They fretted and worried every night that they would be devoured by owls.  They chewed into his hide to find shelter and cower there and they were convinced that these little spaces were their homes.

Old Tree swayed easily under the stars, looking up, ignoring the creatures.  They were insecure, not rooted and temporary.  He knew this just as he knew himself to be temporary.  The Earth, temporary.  The stars too.  It was the mistaken belief in the possibility of permanence that drove the creatures to dig and bury themselves, to hide.

Longevity was the force that drove them.  They thought of making one more day, one more year.  They did not see or understand that a day and a year are no different to a tree, or the universe.  They could not imagine time past their own deaths, or perhaps the deaths of those around them.  But Old Tree had been here a long time.  He understood.  he watched them live, cower and die again and again.  He saw that death did not stop time.  He also saw that death did not end the creatures.  They were always there and they were always the same.

The problem, thought Old Tree, is that they do not experience the "We".  I am a tree but I am also a forest.  They are creatures but they are also a species.  They need better names for their groupings.  Then they would understand.  A forest of creatures.  That is something to be.  How empowered they would feel if they could consider themselves a forest and not the fragile, frightened creature.  Much harder to hunt a forest.

But Old Tree was also temporary and one day a different creature came.  This creature was also a forest, seemingly endless.  This forest came with tools and began to bring down trees around him.  Not to worry, he thought.  We are many.  But the forest of people came in waves and each wave was more efficient at cutting trees.

Then, one day, one year, Old Tree was alone and frightened.  He remembered the timid creatures that had once lived with him in fear and he understood that fear now.  He had been so confident, so wise.  But now he was just alone.  The forest of people cut him easily from the ground under an infinite sky and the Earth rolled on its course around the sun.  The Earth laughed at Old Tree's fear of death.  Surely Old Tree did not understand that he was more than a forest.  Forests came and went but were always there, always came back, always the same.  Forests should understand that they are part of something more, part of Earth.  Forests need better names for their groupings.  Then they would understand.  An Earth of forests.  That is something to be.  How empowered they would feel if they could consider themselves an Earth and not a fragile, frightened forest.  Much harder to cut down an Earth.

Old Earth rolled on through the black paint of the universe quite confident in his permanence.