Skulls under the growth

You see a tree?

I get the idea, my grandparents are the trunk, my parents branches, me a stick

My kids the leaves

I get the concept

I like the concept

Our family tree, a beautiful, growing thing

But

We are rooted in death

Are we not?

We could not— any of us— exist

If not for our ancestors

And all our roots

Are tangled together

Far enough back, my ancestors are YOUR ancestors

Some are killers and some are saints

What tree could be grand enough for such a family?

We are the whole forest

And the floor is packed with detritus of every single thing

We have ever

Eaten

There are skulls in the dirt!

Beneath all our growing weight

Some skulls still grin, with their teeth intact

My great grandma’s skull is there, under my tree

I know her name, I remember her face

And her embrace

Both of my grandfather’s skulls are there too

And I remember how weak they looked— these strong, ancient men—

I remember their frailty at the end

Crumbling bark, falling branches

Fingers like brittle twigs

Voices that trembled like leaves in the wind

Now these men are the substrate

To which so many roots cling

And there are other, deeper skulls

Toothless

Nameless

Yellowed by time

Cracked by the weight of so many trees

And what of the dirt? Fallen leaves that have rotted away

Atoms transferred

From one being, to the food web

My atoms are not new

They might shift and bond in dynamic ways, making and remaking molecular change

But my atoms have been in motion since the dawn of time

So are they really mine?

No

Every single part of me belongs to the universe

Trillions of tiny portions of the cosmos,

Merely on loan to me,

For now but not for long

Before me these atoms were on loan to a triceratops

Or a jellyfish

What creature of the forest shall have these atoms next?

One day my skull shall fall and be buried in leaves and the leaves shall rot and my skull shall yellow and the roots shall grow over my brow and through my empty sockets and my bones shall be crushed like seashells beneath the weight of my nameless descendants.

All the pieces of me shall be taken as due, my atoms shall be in the flowers and in the bugs and in the smiles of new and distant children and even in the dusts that breeze across the earth.

My debts shall be forgiven

I shall be forgotten

My distant family will thrive with no memory of me

Until my last descendent falls

My entire bloodline is only a temporary participant in this marching forest

And the forest shall pay no heed to any one tree

After all

My atoms

And your atoms

They were only ever

On

Ecological and universal

Loan

Ours for now but not ours for long

…

Really

…

Not

…

Ours

…

At all