Peace and Jewels
Silence. Deep, velvety white silence as thick fluffy flakes cascaded from the sky. Nothing else moved.
Peace lay thick on the branches and twigs, the black trees turning white disappearing into the landscape. No animals or birds were to be seen. Somewhere out in the snowy whiteness the land and its inhabitants lay sleeping and dreaming. Of what does the fox, the badger and the rabbit dream? Only the trees know. With their roots earthed in deep ground only they hear the whispers of animals sleeping in dens pawed out of soil, sand and clay. The animals read the ground and dig accordingly to the story of each stone they come across. But, of these things humans know nothing about … and that is as it should be. Only the trees know what goes on below ground as above. Only the trees have an ongoing dialogue with the snow as it falls.
They gather up its flakes in armfuls ready to change into icicles and diamond droplets, once the winter sun has softened their edges, when Jack Frost comes to make his magic.
Later as the days pass and the air warms, the trees will let fall their carefully collected snowflakes as drips and drops from branch tips creating circles of green, brown and black around their roots. Trees create microclimates where bulbs can grow in peace below ground before spring, gathering together their flowering colours ready to paint with upon emergence into the light. Within the boundaries of their reach they offer shelter and sustenance.
As the air warms, the moisture from the snows’ breath turns to steam and spirals up into the air from trunk and twig and the trees lose their glass beads one by one. They do not seem to mind the loss of their treasures, perhaps knowing that soon more jewels will come.
As things fall away from our lives we are reminded by our friends the trees that some things are destined to melt away. Soon it will be as though they never existed. Such moments are all too brief yet the real treasure lies in their experience not in possession.
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