A tree’s life is about balance.
Its soil needs moisture but too much can make it fall. It needs the wind to carry its seeds with the hope that they will prosper. If the wind is too strong a tree may break. What a tree needs most is to be left alone by man.
Imagine if every seed were allowed to grow. Oaks would flourish if acorns, which the squirrel dutifully buries, were not mowed over twice weekly. If pine cones were not gathered for bird houses or craft projects they may just do their job. If the disturbance and piling of earth did not create erosion, the soil would not be ripped from under a tree by a simple downpour. We stand in the way of nature. Yet, we are of nature.
The wind holds and protects the tree. They dance at night while the cardinals and the squirrels sleep. Leaves flutter, bark bends, and the sinews which hold trunk to earth allow slight movements creating a rhythm unlike any other.
A tree may fall by the hand of the wind. When the soil below it can no longer bear its weight. When it reaches an age where it no longer bears seed to carry. When its leaves are a memory and its center is splintered, the wind will come and be a friend–in the end.
The same friend which danced with the tree in the night will lay it to rest. May at least one seed have flown, from the branches of an elderly oak to a soil fit for the growth of its legacy. May man leave it alone.
Anthony Sadler 