How long I have stood

How long have I stood

Generations of men with their fire and smoke have passed. Sharing with me the comfort of my shade while resting on my ground. They’ve built their homes and fortresses with the resources that I’ve offered, and yet, never once have I been repaid, or heard a word of thanks. The very air they breathe is mine, but they fill it with the sickening stench of their dead and with the death of my closest colleagues. Some of them recognize me and what I’ve done for them. And yet, ever-still, no thanks are given. Others come to rob me of my youth and splendor, sometimes using me for the nefarious purposes of their wicked nature. I loathe them all, but retaliate I mustn’t, even if I could. For my master has forbidden it, and taken from me, the ability to strike at them in my furiousness.

So long have I dreamed of swatting them with the might of my limbs. Or of hardening my heart so much that their superficial praise and worship cannot quell the vengeance that I keep locked within the scars of my existence. Each one representing a lifetime of man-induced anguish and suffering.

Why, oh great master, must I quietly endure?

My spirit churns with Collywobbles whenever I am forced to bear the adornment of their meaningless celebrations. Because I have watched them, long enough, to be familiar with their fecklessness. For one season, they dance and sing while hanging their shiny metals on my garments. Then, for the next, they chant and bellow while using me to impose their hatred on one another. Wicked to the core, every one of them.

Oh, my master, have you not tired of them?

Glad I am that my youth was spared the indignity of being their tool of murder. For they always ignored me, passing me by in search of one who was taller and broader. Foolishly assuming size equals strength. However, now that I am mature and filled with strength, I fear they will see my worth beyond their need for a living weapon. Like so many before me, they will tear me down and strip me of my glory. Cut me to pieces and use me as a display of their ill-gained opulence.

The love for me, when I produced that which they could gobble up in praise of themselves, has faded, now that I am too old to give them the part of me that they’ve enjoyed so much. I was a God to them, so many of them, and for so long. But how quickly they forget.

How quickly they raise another to replace one who fails to provide for them. And how quickly they strip of beauty and cast aside that which no longer feeds their insatiable appetites. I detest them so.

Their harmony is no more than superficial, overshadowed by their covetous desires and disingenuous love for all that the master has given them. I long for the day when the price for their destruction is collected. I pray to live long enough that I can stand tall, in joyousness, while watching them fall. Watching them burn, like so many of my kin have burned, just to provide them with a trophy of self-worth. The kin that they’ve torn down, walked on, hidden behind, or used to protect their daintiness. To keep them safely nestled within the structures with which they’ve littered my land.

Will their eviction come before my demise? Will my master relieve me of their yoke? Or offer to them my carcass?

They come and go like seasons, with one generation senselessly valuing my kind over others, only to choose others over me later on. They are fickle and dangerous in their capriciousness. They show intense love and infatuation before, cruelly, putting the object of their affection to the blade moments later. How can such a creature be reconciled?

Oh, my master, is it my destiny to be nothing more than fodder for their ego?

I’ve watched in horror, as some of them, who have fed and nourished us, and worshiped us for what we provide them, have torn us, root and stem, from our places when we stood in the way of their dominion. They use us to build their monuments on the very ground that they steal from us. Loathsome they are, in their haughtiness.

I remember a time when my beloved world was devoid of their presence. When we lived together in peace and harmony. Gathered together, listening to the divine song of the master’s orchestra, swaying in time with its gentle ebb and flow. Big or small, young or old, we all shared the same value. Each of us, equally beautiful and equal in contribution. Never judged by our ability to produce or provide. And never, ever, fearing the others who shared our spaces. True harmony.

We were once free to send our children into the wind to pioneer the landscape and grow their own families among those whom the wind had blown before. Never separated and divided according to one’s kind. And most certainly not stationed before their monuments in forced salute of their worthless achievements. Do they still not realize that their monuments will remain after they themselves return to the ground? Do they not care that we must continue to endure their trespass, long after they are gone? Their opulence is our ballast, and what a heavy ballast it is.

There is no greater indignity than to stand, side by side, in a row, day and night, outside their palaces while they feast and slumber in the comfort of our protection. Oh, but they will still die, because the master has deemed it so. Die they must, so die they will.

It is in this truth that I find my comfort. Comfort in knowing that their time in this world grows shorter with each generation. Comfort in knowing that however we are depleted or mistreated by them they will, eventually, be gone, and we will yet remain. Steadfast in our purpose, and long in our endurance, we will outlast them all. Through every season, every failed ideology, every war, and every kingdom, we will endure. We will forever listen to their banter and study their ways. We will learn their languages and customs while memorizing their plans and schemes. And we will stand in observance as, one-by-one, they fall.

But, alas, we must watch, in silence, as they kill, burn and destroy. We must watch in silence as they plunder that which runs deep within our veins. Calling it their most valuable resource, while robbing us of ours. We stand, idly by, while they loot the minerals of our ground, just to hang them from their necks and wrap them around their frail and tiny limbs. The image of those minerals returning to the ground after they are buried with them pleases me. It is folly that they put such value on that which they must return. And it is ironic that at the end, the master gives them to the very ground that they’ve spent their lives stealing from.

Oh, great master, you are, indeed, just.

Perhaps it is why they live and die in such misery, in such fervent pursuit of that which they cannot keep. That which will remain on this world long after they’ve been given back to it. Or is it their gluttonous consumption of concocted potions and adulterated forage. Every creature and every gift of the earth is plundered, distorted, and robbed of its spirit for the sake of their satiation. They poison our food and waters with foul potions, potions that soak into our flesh and sicken our bodies, while keeping the purest of resources for themselves. Vile creatures they are, each and all.

For each of them, a dozen of us have been destroyed. Therefore, for me and my kind, to fall and die naturally, in solitude, is a gift. But when, in our death, we can cause theirs, it is a great honor. When our strength is no longer their protector, but the bringer of their demise, the scales of justice are, for that moment, evenly weighted.

These sparse moments are the moments when my hope is restored. In these moments, the air I breathe is the sweetest, the wind I feel on my skin is the softest, and the water that soaks my roots is crispest. These are the finest moments that any tree can hope for.