Tree

I'm sitting on a bench

in a cold, lightly foggy park.

I gaze at a small cluster of tall, leafless trees

-it's early spring, what do you expect?-

yet despite of and thanks to the cold,

I see clearly the thousands, millions of forked branches,

all of them coming from a junction

all of them forming new ones

As I sat here, it dawned to me

I was not looking at a tree

but instead I was looking at life:

Our roots - invisible- are the source of our being,

from there our life progresses

further and further up the tree's trunk

flowing from junction to junction

like life does from choice to choice.

And looking at it from a distance

I suddenly realised it matters not

the choices that we make,

how high up the tree we come.

For we are always headed upwards

and will always catch our rays of sun.

MdG 19-3-2003