What says the Tree to his friends the Rocks?
When he lives and breathes they sit and mock?
And he grows strong, for centuries long, but one he dies and begins to rot.
“We will last intact this way! And you my friend, will soon decay!”
“But I can breathe -- am commensal; the shade, the fruits, the nests on bough.
And if with this, my time finite, I'm glad to have spent it doing right.”
But Rocks prefer to simply sit.
To gain none, lost none, just exist.
But nary should an ocean rise, they'd become sand and disappear with the tides.
When trees ignite a cyclical life, from plant to animal to Earth and back; whom, even when their roots are ploughed, have left exponential impact.
And so, the greedy human kind, to conquer trees tall, mountains high, erects gigantic splinters of steel that shame forests, make mountains to kneel.
And progress spreads like moss on a stone.
Evolution dictates that men are prone to outdo those that came before.
“You see? We'll last forever more!”
We improve what nature made.
We'll challenge mountains, transplant lakes.
There is no confirmed master plan.
We do it just because we can.
But foolish is the one who complacently thinks himself King because when Time erodes the past what remains are Nature's things.
Quite Shakespearean duals, those between parent and offspring are!
As Chronos devours his Son, Gaia to mankind so starts.
Metal rusts, cement crumbles.
To err is human, not divine.
Prayers are so intently mumbled when proud man is forces to decline.
Steel, concrete, technology may stand intact for centuries, but faces with wind or flood or quake, like toys will crumble, bend and break.
I say with actions what you do with words.
For we're the moss; the Earth -- the stone, so let us do as did the Tree.
For silence will long be ignored, and action recognized quickly.
We won't outlive our generation but our impact surely will.
This -- the Rocks' humiliation -- when they witness we are still alive in what we've left for others, like Nature gives, so selflessly.
So pay respect to out true Mother and take your rank amongst the Trees.