This Tree

Duration

5:26

Genres

Indie Rock

Lyrics

Come sit for a while where you can’t quite see the sky. Find a place on the ground amid the leaves and the sounds of living. Calloused roots shape the soil. Burning sunlight is foiled into cool, mottled green. And this sturdy trunk leans against forces not seen in your lifetime. These branches have grown without blooms of their own, but the earth in their care shelters saplings that dare outgrow them, and others who fall with no challenge at all. But the fallen have worth as their ghosts feed the earth and in falling go forth to protect other births and seedlings. Long ago, this tree stood alone on a hill, scarred by rain and parched by sun. But these roots held their ground until the forest grew around, and when that trial was done, something had begun: this tree had a home. Now, someday, this tree will exhaust its time to be, and the forest will find that the giant has dried and brittled. And slowly the soil will reclaim the years of toil that this tree took to stand, to prepare fertile land for growing. And even the frame of this tree will not remain as its bark turns to dust, and its knotted flesh must be repurposed. But here where it stood grows a thicket of wood: many lives from the one, reaching high toward the sun, though the why they can is forgotten. Long ago, one tree stood alone on a hill, scarred by rain and parched by sun. But its roots held their ground until the forest grew around, and when that trial was done, something had been won. That tree made a home.