The Dark Of the Barks

      They come in all sizes - large and small, tiny and tall. But nobody cowers under the shade of the other. For, they all live in order to live. The bigger ones, however, possess a majestic elegance around their bark and along their infinite branches. The branches might be countable. But the ones that sleep in the nodes waiting to be cut awaken are countless. As if they have sucked in possibilities from the ground and rolled it through their tissues to let it loose every time they run short of one. An endless stock of possibilities running through the sap that flourishes them.

      They can live for years surpassing the soul that might have planted them. But the oldest ones alive now were not planted by anyone. They found themselves breaking the soil and reaching for the sun all by themselves. Not that they need any help in breaking soils and extracting life from it. The soil we consider as dirt, the soil we consider as a mode of art, the soil we scorch to harden history, the soil we bury our loss into, the soil we dig to surface the past, the soil which is of no use to us, unless we need it direly. But to them, the soil is their soul. The soil flows through their vessels and quench the thirst of every leaf. And when they wither away, the soil lives in them as dried ghosts of memory that would remind us of forgiveness if they could speak, at least once.

      They have been here when we were not. They had seen the sun before we did. As a matter of fact, they are the only ones to taste the sun. We humans may know what the sun is composed of, what it'd feel if we fall into it - possibly a fate worse than falling into a black hole. They know how the sun rays feel. We may have a distant idea, but they are the ones who can feel the rays filling their cellular cavities. They can pour the sun into their soul, but still not burn up. The sun only intensifies their green, but never tans them. The sun can love them, and they can rejoice in it. The sun loves them and they selfishly grow in it.

      And they love water. They drink the water that’s buried deep into the grounds. They drink the water that we waste in a prosaic way. They waste water too, but only to get it back. Very economical they are. The clouds floating in the dry sky are indebted to them. Because much of their reserves are filled with the water escaping the pores lining the leaves. And so every time it rains, we can see them to grow brighter in their shade of green. Like the woman who lost her beauty only to age. Like the man who lost his strength only to age. But beauty and strength come hand in hand. Like the drops of rain that only reaches their soul through dirt.