*Feel like I was a tree in a previous incarnation (and an amoeba, dog, and sundry other collections of cells)
I was a young adult tree
When chopped down
We all silently screamed
But somehow
Lying dying
I noticed that some were missed
My friend Adonis was one
A proud, Bosnian Pine
And now, scrolling through FB
In my newest incarnation
I recognize him
Being celebrated as the oldest living tree
In Europe
From the Pindus Mountains in northern Greece
And my previous life flashes through my mind
Back to times before the axmen came
And murdered us for nothing
Leaving us there to rot
While they picked some berries
From our leafy hair
Or snapped off twigs to build a fire
Before that
We all stood in the Spring dawn as the sap rose
From the roots to the tips of branches
We all stood in the Summer nights
Softly singing our tree songs
Only heard by the forest fauna
Who smiled and slept in our roots
And branches
We all stood in the Autumn afternoons
Hearing the crackling of our red and brown leaves
As hunters moved through the forest
We trees trying to shelter our smaller friends
Fated to be dinner for these men
We all stood in the Winter mornings
Grateful for the snow that kept us warm
Holding in the moisture where we burrowed into the Earth
I did not last long
But happy to read that Adonis is still the Guardian
Of flora and fauna and lost souls who wander
Through the paths
Lovers who shelter in his leaves
Adonis who was a seedling in Byzantium
Adonis as an Ottoman at the age of 500 Earth years
Adonis as a witness when Nazi Germany
Occupied Greece
I wonder if Adonis
Can live another thousand years
And if not
Who will he be
Reincarnated like me
Imagine all the knowledge
And wisdom
Contained in his brain
Manifested into one
Who this time can run
When the axmen
Inevitably come
Again…
© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Adonis, via Dr. Oliver Konter, Mainz