Roots of Life

The oak tree stands tall, strong, unmoving, its sturdy limbs branching out high over the ground and the other trees.  It is envied for it’s long life, it’s endless growth and strength, its protective case of rocky bark shielding it from any harm.  The plants around it wish for the towering strength as they are at risk of getting trampled or eaten by bugs or animals. Their lives are shorter, still long, but nothing compared to the endlessness of the oak tree.  They come and go as it lives on, weathering the storms and changes of the world, standing rigid and unmoving besides the flickering leaves that tipped the reaching branches. It stands in the same place its whole life, and sometimes longer.  The secret of the oak tree’s everlasting strength are the roots, the life-bringing tendrils that steady and hold the tree for centuries as they grow further and further every day. They spread further than any other plant’s, making the tree an immortal, unmoving giant.

    But the tree has stood for so long, overlooking the same mountainside, crowded with other, younger trees.  It grows lonelier as its roots grow deeper, sealing its fate in the mountain’s rich earth. The birds are its only condolence.  They come to roost in it’s thick branches, building nests and raising young. They sing it songs of flight, of the clouds, of new lands, and adventures had and yet to come.

    It yearns to follow them.  To pull it’s restricting roots from the deep earth and rise from the ground where it sits for so many years.  To experience the adventures the birds sing of. It wished for a body of different sorts, instead of the eternal wooden statue it was confined in.  It longed for the muscles and sinews of the birds, the bones and feathers that gave them the ability to soar above the mountain, above the clouds, to the sun.  It wished to fly, to move, to leave this eternal stance.

    The animals and plants wished for the natural protection and long life of the tree.  It would trade anything to be able to move and fly. It’s long life meant nothing to it.

    The years passed, the flow of time unhindered, the curse of the almost immortal tree making its branches sag and leaves droop.  Still the roots grew, pulling the tree away from the sky as it reached up to the blue. Reaching to the bright orbs that circled the blue and dark expenses it longed to explore.  It watched them for so long, the twinkling diamonds and the brighter circles that teased him as they passed, free to soar above everything.

    The tree began to hate them.  The birds it once found condolence in became it’s tormenters as they teased it with tantalizing stories of life without roots holding them down.  The breathtaking view the tree had overlooked for so long was dull and ugly to it. But there was nothing it could change. The roots that the tree had once been proud of now held it back, its leaves dropping to cover the bumps that grew too high in the dirt.

    Still the years passed, the birds sang their tales, the circles of light teased as they circumnavigated the sky.  The tree’s bark hardened, and its upward growth slowed.

    Humans had come, building nests for themselves with the trees around the oak.  It didn’t care, barely noticed as they built paths and nests along the mountainside.

    It was so tall, so beautiful and strong, they said as they circled it’s thick trunk.  Bark too hard to cut, to old to ruin. So they left it. Building their colonies around it.

    Still the tree wished.

A plant grew.  Starting from a puff of seed, slowly growing thin roots stem, stretching, reaching toward the light above.  One day, finally, the earth parted and it felt the sun for the first time. The light was beautiful, and it urged the plant to grow faster, green life pulsing into the stem through the thin tendrils of roots.

The plant grew at a base of a massive oak tree, on the edge of a town. It was nestled in between rows of pansies and daffodils. But this plant wasn’t like the colorful blooms that grew above it.  The humans would call it a weed, a common dandelion. They said they would have to weed around there when they had the chance. No use in having ugly pests among the beauties.

The plant didn’t understand; What made it different from the rest of the flowers? Maybe they’d change their minds when they saw the beautiful flower that was about to spring open any day.  But still, it worried.

Finally, one day came and the dandelion’s bud opened to reveal a beautiful, golden, puff of sunlight, made of hundreds of tiny petals that thrived in the light they mimicked.  The jagged leaves spread wide as it opened it’s golden face to the sun, to show its beauty for all to see.

Beauty, that went unnoticed among the glory of the blooms above.  Beauty, that didn’t exist in the minds of the humans. The beauty to the dandelion was called pest and weed to all others.  Ignored and avoided.

The dandelion was dejected.  The golden drop of sun slowly diminished, turning grey and wispy, into the seeds that would soon be sent away on a breeze.  The golden face was gone. It was just a weed. Unwanted and even hated. It held no beauty in the eyes of the world. It didn’t ask to be a weed, why was it the one to be hated?

One day, the humans came.  They picked through the delicate flowers above and selected only the weeds like the dandelion.  Soon it would be gone.

It looked up to the tree. The massive oak that stood above all.  If only it were a tree! Then it would be beautiful! No one would be able to pluck it from the ground!  It would be able to see above all! If only...

Hands closed around its delicate stem, and with painful tug, its small roots were torn from the solid earth below, exposed to the dry air around.  It was lifted up, up! Above the tormenting flowers that dipped their jeweled heads in mocking bobs. It saw above and beyond further than it had ever seen.

The last thing it felt was a breeze, a gentle tug that pulled the grey puffs from it’s once-gold face.  The invisible hands lifted them, gently, billowing up on tiny currents of air as they floated away, into the forest yet to be claimed by the humans.  Into a happier life than it had lived, away from the judging flowers and humans, into the trees that inspired it so. Peace found the dispirited plant as the seeds floated away to a happier life.

And then it was gone.  Thrown away into the pile of uprooted plants.  Weeds. They all lay together, dreaming of the world beyond, of a different life, if they had only been different.  But nothing could change it.

But still, the dandelion dreamed of the tree.

The oak stood, unhindered by the events below as it dreamed of the sky.  Of the places beyond. Of its impossible dream.

Impossible..

Years passed on.  The tree had long stopped growing.  Its branches sagged, leaves almost gone.  The life-giving roots were dying.

The tree had given up.

It continued to weaken as the time passed, until one day, when a massive storm blew through the canyon, flattening plants and unsettling dirt as it rained down in all of the sky’s fury.

The weakened, dying tree creaked and groaned against the force of the gales, but the withered roots gave way, and the long-standing oak crashed to the ground, splintering the once-sturdy branches and exposing the ancient, muddy, roots, the secret to it’s almost immortality.

The tree was cut up and shipped away to a lumber yard the following morning.  It’s lumber was sold to a great many places, for the wood was strong although a bit rough.  Pieces of it went to build houses, to frame pictures, and many other places. But most of the tree went to build a boat.  It was a small boat, made by an adventurous and ambitious man who sailed far into the ocean as often as he could.

The tree realized it was happy.  Although it wasn’t soaring among the clouds, it sailed through crashing waves and over depths it hadn’t known existed.  It framed artworks of the finest kind. It’s strong wood supported a home for a family to grow in.

The tree had found it’s joy.