Tree Being Me
What it must be, to be a tree!
Connecting through the bark: feeling my body
in its trunk; my feet extending into the earth, twined
as roots; my arms extended through the forest canopy
to sway gently as branches in the breeze... and then!
a sense of the tree feeling through me what it is
to be human: branches as arms, waving without wind;
roots as legs, moving of their own accord...
and I realised, then, a tree can only experience
being human from a viewpoint of a tree.
Mistaking the appearance for the full
experience, it had no true sense of what it is to be me...
...nor I of what it is to be a tree.
What it must be, to be a tree!
Connecting through the bark: feeling my body
in its trunk; my feet extending into the earth, twined
as roots; my arms extended through the forest canopy
to sway gently as branches in the breeze... and then!
a sense of the tree feeling through me what it is
to be human: branches as arms, waving without wind;
roots as legs, moving of their own accord...
and I realised, then, a tree can only experience
being human from a viewpoint of a tree.
Mistaking the appearance for the full
experience, it had no true sense of what it is to be me...
...nor I of what it is to be a tree.
