Vaishnavi Lakshman

9,952 years of solitude

You ever noticed how a tree never seems to make mistakes, except probably when one of its branches falls on some poor souls head , who was walking under its shade blissfully unaware of the tragedy falling from up above. This mistake however, is debatable you see. A tragedy such as this could have occurred due to several circumstances none of which being the trees fault, perhaps the wind god up above blew his nose too hard , thus , caused a rushing wind to knock off the tree’s branch. Perhaps, Termites living on the tree woke up one day and found out that shifting from a tree bark to a tree branch diet would make them look a lot less uglier/creepier/gross-ier .Whatever the strange case maybe, point being ‘Trees do not make mistakes’. Everything about a tree seems to function perfectly, from bearing fruits to flowers, to shedding its green leaves in the appropriate season. This perfect tree is utilized by nature’s most wondrous creations, from a single celled protozoan to a complex primate such as you and me. However, the death of this life giver tree is not really a “big deal” for me or most of the 6.6 billion humans living on the face of this earth.  I don’t remember anyone mourn for a dead tree. Heck! I don’t remember myself even remembering a tree up till this moment of course. There is this strange perfection of a tree which makes it seem so solitary. Whether it’s a tree growing in an orchard, by the road, or beside a house, there is a sense of silent solitude that surrounds it. I am not really a Joyce Kilmer fan make no mistake, but as this devout catholic poet once wrote “Only God can make a tree”. A tree so flawless, that it has nothing to say to the lesser mortal world around it. A tree which is so inconsequential, yet important. So perfect, yet so alone. That tree in silence gives. That one single tree on a vast empty plain grows.