Trees are More than Bark
Written by Leonydes Matis
Posted in Nonfiction, Poetry
- The trees are here because they are planted, not grown on their own. They are planted
with pebbles that have tints of red and brown. Beautiful trees stand forever. Their
branches grow to stretch, reaching each other, and wanting to hold on to life. They grow
to the sky letting their leaves wave in the wind. Their colors shape from green, red,
purple, and gold. Some are bald needing more time, more food than pebbles to grow. The
young ones have leaves all over their trunk letting them drop down to give them new life.
They are taller than any man-made building, not in sight but in spirit. They are the true
homes of mother nature, where the bark holds a world of creatures ready to be fed back into the outside world.
- What do you know about trees? The oak tree grows and knows more. More knowledge
than any human that has or ever will live. More knowledge than the computers that will
take us over. More knowledge than the universe itself for the trees were there at the start.
They are the beginning and they will never be the last but carry on living. The oldest tree
in the world reaches 5,000 years old. It lives in the harshest conditions. Cold
temperatures and high winds would kill anything else. Any human can’t live that long
with a healthy lifestyle or advancements let alone one with freezing temperatures. Bare to
the bone people would die. But the tree lives on. It is slow growing. It created dense
wood and bristlecone pine to make it resistant to insects, fungi, rot, and erosion. It knows
how to protect itself. The tree lives longer because it grows in harsh conditions. We do
not. We might make it out with our lives but our minds are corrupted. Trees; do not become corrupt. Even with bribery.
- The way trees are just there. Watching. You never think twice about the tree that lives in
your backyard or the one that’s at school until it’s gone. You look at the ground at a hold.
At a patch of dirt messy sprinkled with grass. It reminds me of sitting in a tree. Of laying
against it feeling the breeze as I rested from running in the park. It was when my heart
was racing, my skin was sweaty, and my head still spinning that I felt connected to the
tree. The wind coming through the leaves, I felt through my bones. The ground that feeds
the roots, I felt it in my gym shoes. The way the ants climbed up the bark, I was an ant
climbing back on my feet. The stickiness I felt on my hands and arms after I left the park was a reminder of what I felt and believed.