No Tree Stands Alone
My brother was mad at me, when I gave up on living my painful life. Now he’s annoyed/frustrated/bothered, I don’t know what, that I don’t keep quiet about what troubles me.
Yesterday, I said there was peace to be found in the middle. Today I say, and I should only need to say this once: I am alive because I’ve learned to speak my truth. If what I think and feel and want and need disturbs you, the solution seems crystal clear.
Family is blood, true. But some families don’t notice that you’re bleeding. Some families make you bleed, and blame it on something else. Some families grow accustomed to so much blood; think it’s normal, or natural, or necessary.
When my drunken parents fought, I cleaned my mother’s blood from the carpet in the morning. A little girl, not understanding. I will not be a party to hate. I see how it maims and destroys, fueled by fear and denial and when I see forests on fire, burning with rage, wildly out of control, I know there’s no going back to the sunny picnic in the woods, the summer laughing.
I weep for the trees, the death of the people caught up in the miasma, and the image, emblazoned in consciousness, grows dimmer but never really dissipates. Some trees will find the nutrients they need to grow strong, and begin again. Some trees will perish, becoming nutrients. No tree stands alone. No blood is unnoticed. There is life, after decimation, and it comes back slow and careful, reverent and trusting. How can it trust? It has to.
LBM 2/18/2021
