When we are small, and have so very little control of ourselves, we have great need of so many things to sustain our existence.  Our fragile constitution, simplistic mental faculties, and frail musculature require nurture and development.  In due time, we find our step, our water and sunshine, our advancement, and our means to stand and expand.

We find assistance in our pursuit to grow, and we motion ever higher, stretching ourselves beyond our forms.  We will ourselves to grasp encouraging spectral-like extensions, and to grow, expand, and push outwardly into spaces beyond ourselves.  In time, we stop resembling the sproutling that quivers in the face of moderate breeze, and become the developing sapling as we flex our roots and branches.

We make a stand, stake a claim, and affirm our place in the world.  We assure ourselves, and confirm our knowledge with regurgitated factoids that we are special, smart, and beautiful.  We insist that our place on, and in, the dirt has more profound meaning than the persistent efforts of the masses before us.  We now have structured, formidable, roots. And our branches are taut, producing leaves that glisten with nascent ignorance and optimism.

And we present ourselves as radiant, virile, defiant, and completely independent.  Our aura is bright and influential, our energy completely, and our drive perpetually replenished.  We produce, produce, and produce, and are the perfect source of sustenance and vigor.  The canopy is lush with the most succulent of fruits, the most vibrant of leaves, and the most formidable of limbs

And in this state of trembling magnificence,  we point heavenward and stretch and flex our beauty further.  We are not content to have glory in the moment, and luminescence in youth. We insist on pushing towards the sky, striving towards the moon, and setting our course for the heart of the sun.  Our foliage is full, expansive, and makes play at blotting out the sky.

A point is achieved, though, at which the tension to our musculature cannot be sustained.  Our flexing, stretching, yearning, and straining touches an imperceptible ceiling, and forces atrophy.  The heat of the sun becomes too oppressive for the leaves, branches, and tree to expand against, and thus, a retraction occurs.

The drive and fervor suddenly aren’t self-sustaining. The passion and fire are now bright embers that require quick puffs to spark and stoke. The rigidity of resolve has become the flaccid fallacy of fortitude.  Maintenance becomes the goal, and survival and perpetuity become the zen words of a life subsistent on routine and daily capitulation. Similarly, the most expansive boughs of the tree now bend to the sides, and the leaves show brown eating away at the internal crescents.

The body now forces in upon itself.  Creases appear where confidence once pressed itself outwardly upon the world.   Drive, dedication, conviction and prowess give way to doubt, indecisiveness, insecurity, and wanton fastidiousness.   Inexplicable needs to insulate and ensure survival, in spite of drastic decline, occurs.  The leaves turn brown, and eventually grey in color.  The limbs curl, and become gnarly, in trying to shield the remaining structure from harm.  The bark cracks and hardens, with attempts to stave off future demise.

But it matters not.  We double over. We lurch through later life, and yearn for youth.  We carry the ghostly fire of what could have been inside of us.  We amble on with brilliant potential flame inside, and crippled fortitude outside, left stoking the fire. The tree now regards itself askew from a withered trunk, and observes drooping and decrepit grey limbs rife with shattered skin.  The harvester approaches with his axe, intent on salvaging what non-rotted material may remain.  And though it had never spoken but of its will towards the sky and sun,  the tree cries out…

“__________________”

Humbly yours,

J