Her branches reach towards their natural potential and bear fruit. Light from the sun lays an intense green color over her wide leaves that suck in the warmth and transform it into food for her hungry roots. Water from the sky energizes the drizzling feeling of life force running through her veins. Rain is welcome. The winds tickle her to dance and she smiles. Life.
She is in no need for solitude for her mind is free and the voices of cultural will do not reach her. Opinions float by in the form of seeds and such. Some land in her hair. Others by her feet. Some are eaten by birds. Others find good soil where they can rest and grow. The landscape is open. Mountains sleep along the horizon.
She feels something pulling her arm, and remembers the little boy who used to hang onto the branches so that he could pull himself up to reach the finest apple. Slowly she lets her eyes move in the direction of the pull and sees a grown man in overalls. The scar over his lips reveal his identity, otherwise the curious and joyfilled child had grown into a goal oriented family provider with little care for values that would not repay his bank loans. All this she could sadly sense from his tense joints and stiffened jaw. She’d seen him build his house a few hundred yards away and heard whispers of childbirth from the groves closer to the building. Last time he visited he brought a beautiful young lady and put a golden ring on her finger and an autumn orange five fingered leaf in her bright hair. They loved.
Seven years since his last visit. Six and a half to be specific. He almost tripped in her foot when she winked and uttered a greeting, as if he’d forgotten their once so sacred ritual. Then she noticed the tool behind his back. Recognizing it as the cause of her families death and devestation. She withdrew instantly into the deepest sap leaving the bark cold and impersonal.
Would he really?

A left hand story,
by Sonja Bunes