The Tree

Her bare feet padded along the cool, hard earth as she sprinted to her weeping willow. Her hair blew into her face and stuck to her lip, and her arms pumped as she ran faster. The sun was high in the sky, yet the breeze still left her with small goosebumps on her arms. She passed the enchanting pond, the towering pines, and finally came to a sunny clearing. When her toes felt the soft moss below her, she new she had reached her tree. She flung herself around its massive trunk, and hoisted herself up onto a sturdy branch. Her tree meant everything. Her tree meant life. It's sad, draping vines twisted around her and made her small body feel secure. As the wind danced through the branches she tipped her head up toward the sky and simply thought. Her whole lifetime was only a moment compared to the tree's life of a thousand years. The tree had experienced everything, a silent observer in times of love and loss. She ran her fingers delicately over names and hearts carved into its trunk imagining every story the tree had encountered. She gently moved her hands over the long black gash she guessed was created by a strike of lightning long ago. The tree was scarred. Still the tree stood strong. The tree would continue to stand strong. The tree could handle anything. It watched over her, as it had a thousand times to a thousand others. The tree was kind and the tree was beautiful. She admired the tree the way another child may admire an athlete or celebrity and would continue to admire the tree as she grew into a young woman. Someday it would be her turn to carve a heart into the trunk, and someday the tree would offer support when she too had lost. But for now she simply embraced the magnificent weeping willow as the sun shone upon her back and she listened to singing of the forest. She smiled. And she wept.