“Why, Tree, is your trunk charred, some of your branches black and dead?”
“It was a storm of my past, Rock, and it’s long gone at long last. And why, Rock, are you lonely; what made that crack on your side?”
“It was a long time ago, an unfortunate event, but I’ve figured it out; I know what it’s about. Tell me, Tree, about the storm.”
“It was filled with wind and booming sounds: lightning, chaos and fire all around. It filled me and burned me, but I moved on, and things are okay.”
“Then why, Tree, do you smile when the children bring matches to play?”
“Because I understand the fire. I understand it quite well. When the lightning flashed, I smoldered and smoked a long time—embers glowed and put pain in my side. I was scared by the pain, but it’s something I learned to understand.”
“Oh, Tree, I’m confused pain is what you seek.”
“Not pain, Rock, not pain at all. I know the extent of the fire’s reach, how to control the burn inside my breach. When the storm came and then went, I smoldered until a rain quenched my thirst, snuffing the embers within my girth. My scars were still there, but I was renewed, refreshed, alive.”
“That sounds wonderful, Tree. Water to make you grow, water the pain can’t know.”
“But it stopped, Rock. The rain stopped all at once. And I was scared.”
“What did you do, then, Tree?”
“I craved what I knew. I didn’t understand, but I wanted the fire, and I couldn’t stop in the end. That’s why I smile when children bring matches to my shade. Fire I understand. Water I don’t, and I’ll feed myself lies to protect myself this way. Now tell me, Rock, about your loneliness. Tell me about the crack in your midst.”
“It was a long time ago, Tree, I rolled into your shade. A long time since I started feeling lonely, I’m afraid.”
“But you’re here by my side, Rock, and have been quite long. You’re not alone; look at this friendship we’ve spun.”
“But I don’t let you in, Tree, no not at all. I’m stony and cold, and that’s rather real. We talk and debate and ponder the view, but I don’t let you in; there’s nothing you can do. I manage myself in this peculiar way.”
“Okay, Rock, my cold and stony friend, tell me what happened to cause such an end.”
“I lived on the mountain with other rocks like me. The view and camaraderie I thought could not end.”
“But, Rock, views can shift.”
“Indeed they do, Tree. Yes they do. Some boys played at my back, and they pushed me down fast. I rolled and rolled good, to the shade of your wood. And I cracked as I fell, and now am under a spell I find particularly hard to break.”
“A spell, Rock, what’s this that you say? What kind of spell could you be under today?”
“I’m bewitched by that roll and the isolation I feel. I rolled away, far away from my family up there. My skin only thickened by the roll that I took. It’s something I can manage, as you’ve made me look. My stony-cold self is something to control, and I’ll lie to myself if it will make me feel whole.”
“But what if I could be your friend, Rock, fill you in ways the fall must have took?”
“If you could then okay, but I don’t think you can. If it were true then I’d hold on too tight in the end. I’d be scared of the pain I could suffer, my friend, because you’ll burn yourself down; you’ll invite fire again. And what would you do, Tree, if I could be rain to quench your thirst?”
“Then I’d be scared of the pain I might suffer again, and I’d push you away before things came to an end. I’m comfortable now with embers in my side; they’re warm and predicted unlike rain that I find. I’ll feed myself lies as I told you before, so that things will make sense, and I can move on.”
“Then we share the same pain up here on the hill, and there’s little to do to change how we feel. I understand it now, Tree, and I think you know how.”
“I think I know how, Rock. I think I know how.”
“But, Tree, there’s something else that I’m sure I can see, and that’s that you nor I can change what we be.”
“I see what you mean, Rock, by that curious phrase. The soils of my birth are a home I can’t remake. The shade I cast can not grow very fast, and the char in my bark is a scar I can’t erase.”
“And I, Tree, am stony and cold by my birth, and I’m cut of a cliff of minerals that don’t mold. I am what I am, Tree, with this crack in my side, the scar of my fall with me through time. I understand it now, Tree, and I think you know how.”
“I think I know how, Rock. I think I know how.”
© Greg Stahl
i found hope – in some of the negative spaces.
=)
brilliant
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Hope. A word I’ve mulled considerably, defining and redefining. I write it definitively only to rewrite it and redefine it later. It’s malleable, I suppose, and takes different forms to suit different frames of reference.
This poem is about hope. The idea is that self-awareness, while not necessarily easy and certainly sometimes painful to achieve, is hopeful.
Which philosopher wrote this?
“The unexamined life isn’t worth living.”
Socrates, if my memory serves.
“I think I know how, Rock, I think I know how.”
With this statement, it is realizing self awareness, is willing to own its perceptions, however flawed, and that to me seems a first hopeful step.
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with awareness grows hope. with hope comes some courage. with exercise of courage comes faith. with the development of faith comes real acceptance. and then, only then, can there be love. i like the space the rock and the tree have created for themselves. roots and rolling paths aren’t always incompatible.
there’s a simple beauty to your poetry in this piece. kudos
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