In Passing a Tree

I passed a tree

And wondered

How many things it had seen

How many more perhaps than even me

I wondered if trees could hear

What happens in the woods

The things that sleep in the branches

And the feet that move among them in the night

I wondered if they could know things

And whisper their stories

To one another

Like secrets

I wondered if they liked to move

When no one was watching

Or if they truly

Couldn't

I wondered if it saddened them

To remain there for all their days

To stand until they meet a howling wind

Returning to the ground from which they grow

But if movement is relative

Then nothing is still

So in passing a tree

The tree passes me

And if they remember the years

And the birds that nest

And all that happens in so long a life

Who then has traveled farther than a tree?

It's sad to think

That even on my two feet

I'll never see the things the trees have seen

I'll never be the places they have been

Without leaving their birthplace

Without moving away

From where the giants' roots take hold

And where for good they stay