A Treetise

Just A Piece Of Poetree

He stands there, branches spread and spreading some more. Fruits, dangling from his very limbs, sway in a ripened rhythm. Skin, now weathered and lined, is still more bark than bite; while arms and legs, though creaky and shaky, have not yet woodened. As a new leaf is about to be turned, he goes back, gazing into roots now sprouted.

It was a time before sprouting, when he was no more than a seed, a thought really: a conceptual idea – maybe coming to fruition, maybe not – that can be everything or nothing. And like most good ideas, he was forgotten in a miasma of uncultivated genius – tossed into the dirt, buried and left to rot.

What happened next is very unclear, a green haze. All he really remembers is that he felt at ease, surrounded by a bunch of tall and strong saviors, protecting the delicate good idea from the harshness of reality. A seed, a young brain, is like wet cement: whatever is etched in it is etched forever – a scarred seed becomes a scarred tree, a healthy seed becomes a healthy tree – and now, as he looks back at this vulnerable time of his, he realizes how close he came to being just another seedy idea.

With much patience and care, he was nourished back to health – cultivated, watered, and sunned. And he remembers the pain, a good pain – the pain of growth. But how it hurt then: the discipline, the breaking of self, the rotting of things past, the leaving of comfort zones, the disintegration of shell until virtually nothing – and then the sprouting; o, what pain it is to sprout.

Ah, but then the pleasure: the pleasure of independence – sure he still needed guidance lest he take a crooked path, but he was an entity all his own now; the pleasure of discovery, learning things he couldn’t even imagine; the pleasure of possibility, dreaming of things he will do; the pleasure of creativity, creating things all his own; the pleasure of giving, knowing he can give back to the world all that (and more) of what it has given him; and of course the pleasure of self, just knowing that he is here, an indispensable detail (and world) in the mass scheme of things.

And his limbs grow thicker, and they grow limbs of their own. Seasons are changing his body, changes are seasoning his soul, and he grows past adolescence into adulthood. He had some rebellion in him – he let his hair dreadlock, even pierced a twig and dabbled in some herb – but that is gone now; he has become a responsible individual.

And he looks back at the wonder of his first fruit, these little things that are so fragrant and sweet. What he enjoys most is the pleasure they give others; just knowing that something he created can have such an impact.

And now his own fruit themselves start to seed, going through the same trials and tribulations he went through. He watches as they try to find their own roots, their own unique ground, and it reminds him of his own early days.

His fruit are now giving off fruit of their own, and he looks-on with a content smile on his lips as all that potential comes to fruition.

It is the beginning of another year; a new energy exposed to earth. It passes through root, trunk, branch, twig, and fruit, energizing a world much in need of inspiration. All we have to do is plant (“He who plants with tears will reap with joy”) those seeds, water (“The water of life” – Torah) those roots (“He shall cause Jacob to take root”), cultivate those trees (“For a man is a tree of the field”), and give off those fruit (“Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit”).

May all this work, sowing and planting, finally give off the ultimate fruit (of our labor) – truly arriving in the “Good Land” a “Land of wheat, and barley, and grape vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil, and honey” – both physically and spiritually.