ma raison d'�tre.

I stand alone. Our conversations were quiet, but the quiet whistles in the evening wind were comforting. Now, I shake alone in the wind. I grow bare alone in the cold. And I stand tall alone in the desert.

 

I get the sunlight to myself, and I feel lush to my roots. I haven't been healthier, at least the giant body that towers over the supple ground.

 

But who to share this happiness? Who to show the beauty? I have never displayed such a royal green as I do on this morning, but no one will see it.

 

I'm crying and dew drops roll from under my leaves. I moisten the ground that no one else needs. I live to provide for no one else but my selfish self, yet I cannot change this. I cannot make new trees grow, I cannot stop making the ground alive for only myself.

 

I see a girl and a boy coming towards me. She trips over a dying stump, and the boy helps her up. I cannot tell their age, whether they have been here the many decades I have, or whether they are caught in the vices of new and young love. I have been around for too long to be able to tell such subtle differences.

 

They reach me, and, sitting on the ground, lean their backs on me. I stand taller because I have to support them. I stop my weeping; my tears aren't for their love. I keep them from the sun that seems to rise so quickly now.

 

Before I know it, I realize that I have no leaves to show, and I shiver alone as the snow falls from a void sky.