Mama Tree

Roots scratching towards the sky, fistfuls of soil clinging to softly wooded fingers. 

Those in the ground still hold out for hope, 

hold on to water, 

hold off this trunk from the forest floor. 

From her horizontal pose springs trees down the line. 

A dance of branches and solid trunks following a path that was once up up up. 

Now the lineage soars towards the jagged (firs, hemlock, mountains) horizon. 

The smaller trees queue up in their sky bent pursuits, business suits of bark and moss, briefcases of needles and dirt.

Are they young trees rooted into a dying elder? Or is it the mama tree fighting back against fate and gravity, not ready to give up on this being, not ready to decompose into the web of life below, sending out shoots? Are those young trunks her prayers to the Universe for one more shot at this being a tree thing? Is that what all young mamas think, unable to differentiate between the seed and self?

Branches tangle and confuse themselves as roots. 

The sky goes crumbly dark to match the tone of the soil. 

I reach up my hands to feel the rough skin of her back against fate-lined palms. 

There is no end, just roots and sky and branches and soil and the heartbeat of this giant forest within me.