Her Name Is Tree

Tree was a very promising girl,

with the wisdom and the potential

of Nature enclosed;

creation and creator simultaneously.

To grow and fructify,

she was using substances

from both the inner and the outer worlds.

Some of them nutritious, some like junk-food.

She knew pruning was necessary for Trees,

but she had — unconsciously — chosen

to let others do it to her as they pleased.

There were plenty of offers, after all.

So, every now and then, people were cutting

her branches as they wanted.

They did it “out of love”.

One day, a thunderbolt from within

hit her; a lightning-realization.

Instead of growing and spreading,

she had been withered and shrunk.

The lack of confidence in herself

had made her leave her fate to others’ hands.

They had cut her branches as they liked,

but she had passively accepted it, “out of love”.

Tree got angry.

She was walking alone in her favorite forest,

shouting and blaming

those who had been unfair, violating her.

As the yelling was calming down,

she stopped in front of a lake

and bent down to wash her face.

Suddenly, she was aware.

The surface of the lake

revealed the person responsible for her situation.

She had extended the range of her perception

to where the inconceivable wasn’t her reality anymore.

The whining stopped.

The painful “I take responsibility”

also brought the redemptive

“Everything is in my hands”.

As time went on,

Tree learned to discern

the distorted definition of love,

even when formulated by herself.

She gradually became

the Tree she really was,

having effort-fully regained

the ability to grow and blossom without effort.

***

Anthi Psomiadou — CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International : Credit must be given to the creator/ Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted/ No derivatives