Here We Grow the Big Trees

Here we grow the big trees.

Here is where I plant the seeds and bed them in alien soil. The constant rain seeps through the richness of the mineral and the roots, like raindrops, follow. At dawn they are seedlings, at noon they are sprouts, and at dusk they are towers and giant hands reaching for the stars. They say it used to take months, decades, centuries for trees to grow. But this lonely planet, so desperate for companionship, bleeds life into everything it touches.

Here is where I used to live, in the shack that sits solemnly in the grove. They did take longer there to grow as they choked for life, strangled by this once desolate planet. Here is where I slept and waited, waited for growth and green.

Here is where I shed the mask, the one that fed me air. It is where I left the breath of the womb for the breath of the world, sharing in these glorious new lungs I had summoned from the soil. Here is where I dropped it, cut like a mother’s cord.

Here are where the smokestacks are, billowing amber fumes into the sky. The shell of the world thickens as it builds the atmosphere, keeping the air inside. I hoped I might find someone here as my forest climbed the hill, another lonely soul tending the newborn paradise. But what I found were only ghosts, fragments of a life now spent. For days, I read their diaries and gazed at their drawings and paintings on the factory walls. Even though I never saw them, I thought of them as a friend, engaged in a long-distance friendship that transcended life and death. But once the last book was read and my friend had nothing left to share, it was time to carry on again into the vast, yet-to-be-sown plain.

Here is where I was when the winter came. I didn’t know it was possible, but how was I to know? Know that those endless rains that gave trees life would choke them with falling ice? I too suffered, so far from my cottage in the grove. No shelter, no protection, just the clothes on my back. I struck down two of my children and harvested them for wood, making from them the simplest of things just to halt the wind. Two more fell for me to burn but they didn’t burn for long, not now that the rest were dying and the air was wearing thin. I laid on frozen soil where fruit would not grow, fingertips turning blue. Here is where I curled up, clutching weakly to life as the air only got colder. My vision was dark and I thought it was over. But somehow, I woke up to feel myself sinking, slowly settling into soft earth as the sun star’s light burst from beyond the clouds. The ice shards twinkled and wept before seeping into the desperate roots below, those that clamored for new life.

Here was where I met the ocean and its still and silent shore. Empty and lifeless, tempered only by salt, I swore it went on forever, a glorious mirror for the gods. After a wade and a dip, I had to say goodbye for trees do not spring from water.

Here is where the valley opened like curtains on a stage, revealing endless, campestral lands.

Here is where I followed the stream like a vein of cool, blue health.

Here is where I started to feel it, the wear and weight of age. Not just in my bones, was it, but curdling in my thoughts. I had never before feared loneliness for desolation was my cross. But here I began to worry that not just I, but this world, would die alone.

Here is where I entered the mountains, stepping stones for long gone titans. I climbed and planted, slept and grew sore. There was a band around their frigid tops where the air was not enough, tiny sprouts strained for hours before withering away.

Here is where I felt myself slowing, my bones brittle, my will soft. The breath of time was begging in to overtake me. But there was so much more fertile soil…

Here is where I’ll leave this book for I haven’t the strength left to write. I’ll leave it here, a tiny treasure, for someone else to find.

Here is where the forest ends, though it will not be here long, for I will keep on planting until there is no soil left to tend. I only hope this world hasn’t ended before it’s had a chance to begin.

Here we grow the big trees.