Off Spring

The great deciduous trees seem more human than we,

living their entire lives in four short seasons.

Just as human faces shift and morph,

they too succumb to the frost and autumn hues.

But the icy blanket never lasts forever,

as the ground thaws and new life bursts forth

from the cages of bark and branch

to the light offered by the early spring.

Millions of hands wave in the wind

as the tips of their leaves stretch toward the sky, like spindly fingers,

breathing new life into the skeleton that came before.

In this cycle of life, we can see the meaning so plainly,

as the old gives way to the new, differing slightly from before.

Embracing the discrepancy and utilizing the advantage of being unique

is crucial to the skeletons of the forest.

We are not merely individuals,

we are the flowers, the branches, and the bark.

When winter comes, our lives will end too,

and our offspring will flourish into the newest version of ourselves.

The lifecycle of the deciduous forest lasts but twelve short months,

yet within that span, we can watch the birth of the next generation,

observing as the new emerges from the old,

each unique in its own way, just as we are.

So let us not miss the beauty of this cycle of life,

let us cherish it and hold it close,

for the trees remind us that even in death,

new life will always emerge from the skeleton that came before.