Death, Life, and Trees
Two miles from everywhere,
Around five past anytime,
There was only grass,
And a couple of trees.
Trees in a valley,
In that place you can’t find,
Almost all cedars,
Just one lonely fir.
On long summer nights,
One cedar would shake,
Then the one next to it
Would soon replicate.
And they would start dancing,
As was their way,
In the cool summer breezes
Till the end of the night.
Everyone lively,
Branches shaking about,
But that one short fir,
Stood perfectly silent.
The fir scoffed,
So cocky and smug,
I don’t need to dance,
To be happy inside.
The cedars only laughed,
And said to the fir,
But everyone dances,
Don’t you want to fit in?
The fir was surrounded,
By the gay, laughing trees,
But still he stood silent,
As was his way.
Who says it is right?
Who says it should be?
Since when do the cedars
Decide what is fair?
Gone are the days
When necks were obscene
We laugh in the ignorance
Of our own foolish ways.
When cedars are dead,
And firs do abound,
We will think of your dancing
As simple and silly.
And as the fir
Was beginning to rest,
He heard the loud cedars,
And the whispers they whispered.
The lumberjack,
The cedars cried in silence,
He comes in the dead of night,
And slices your children.
No larger than a pine cone,
Stronger than the sky,
The lumberjack kills you,
And leaves with your soul.
He is not real,
The fir did retort,
You ruin our fun,
The cedars would shout.
You fear the unreal,
Yet the real you love,
How glorious to die,
How terrifying the lumberjack!
Is it not a mask,
For the fear you all know,
For the fear you deny,
For the fear you all scorn?
Impossible is nothing,
It is only a cover,
The inevitable you all fear,
Though no one will say it.
The cedars all laughed,
The cedars still played,
But the hearts of the cedars,
Were not in the game.
A weight, apprehension
Behind the wide smiles,
A pain, unrelenting,
Behind the wide eyes.
All summer and fall,
The cedars did play,
But then in the winter,
Everything changed.
And when the cedars faded,
The fir stayed strong and tall.
Never moving, not once,
In the valley of death.
Dead wood, live wood,
Always the same.
Nothing ever moves
Two miles from everywhere.
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