Lifeline: A YWP Project of Prose and Trees

To really feel a forest canopy we must use different senses, and often the most useful one is the sense of imagination. -Joan Maloof

I have not yet allowed myself the usage of anger in my writing to depict my own misgivings. I have not yet answered my own burning questions for fear of ostracism, especially from myself. We are, of course, our own worst critics, and when it comes to the Earth and her environmental struggles, I have found myself leaning toward the worst. In my own thoughts I have of myself, and the thoughts I have thrown up as a barricade against the judgement of others, I have not yet managed to depict the stability of my own psyche, and thus, I have not managed to convince myself of my own inner innocence in such matters as these. This juxtaposes with my fear for the forests of our day, and the complete and utter terror I have experienced every time I see a new photo or video posted on a social platform such as Instagram cutting down more of them, or, God forbid, tearing them down! This fear, of course, has to do more with my love of the eternal than the ephemeral, and once these trees fall, well, my own fantasies come crashing down around my own traitorous ears. Traitorous, of course, in the way that shows my ignorance.

In that ignorance, I once believed that trees were "forever". That they would stay in their places until the end of time, infinitive in their stance, unmoving in their pose. It was not until I grew out of the infantile viewpoint of fanatical dreamings that I finally realized quite how temporary nature has become, when in a world not so far behind us, they were always present. Always there. They are, for better or for worse, our lifelines, as essential to our survival as our own right to consume the food which gives us energy. Which then poses the question that if the sun is as important as the trees, and vice versa, then to keep the sun is to keep the trees, and if we cannot remove the sun, then should we rethink our own vigilance to disturb our trees? As I once believed, in keeping the important parts of our society is to keep the most important parts of us all, and that, I think, should be the largest reason to sway your own position, if it opposes mine. 

I'd also like to add, in spite of my own misgivings of this other particular, that it could be correct for once. The Bible, I think, has a lot to say, whether it be correct, relevant, or completely obsolete. 

... you are dust, and to dust you will return. 

A misquote, used as a formal greeting, but correct nonetheless. Could we continue to remember our own cycles, settle our human feelings and greed, and let the trees take their own course? Or are we, as a species, so concerned with our own fates that we cannot remember the plight of another? 

Something to think about, I think. 

-Infinite