We Need Each Other

Alive.

For centuries.

This tree.

It grows.

It’s here.

It breathes.

The breadth.

The width.

The reach.

I had a need to

Touch it.

I had to see

If I could

Breath into it

And it might absorb part of me.

To keep

With it

Eternally.

We need each other.

Desperately.

I wanted to breathe for this tree.

And have this tree breathe for me.  

******

I knew we were going to see this magnificent tree.   Estimates on it’s age are from near 500 years old to 1000 plus years old.  I think of the breath it takes – as we expel what that tree needs to live.   And it expels what it is we – need to live.  For hundreds of years it has absorbed the breath of how many people.   From the natives of this land, to those of us who breathe here now.  Imagine, as my friend did, the small child who would have been able to look over the top of this tree as it barely sprouted.  And the lives that have come an gone under the span of not only it’s branches, but it’s very existence.   It may seem silly.   But we breathe in oxygen that trees expel.   Trees breathe in carbon dioxide that we expel.   We need each other.  Desperately.  I wanted to breathe for this tree.   And have this tree breathe for me.