Vision Tree

In my dream, I met an oak tree who saw everything.

The oldest mother in the endangered world.

She still felt the blood of life deep in the soil.

“There are things worth growing for,” she said to me.

I saw the way her roots wove into the ground,

connected for miles to siblings and saplings.

“Open all your eyes,” she said.

I saw the painted ducks floating in the stream,

a white-tailed deer and her daughter in the field.

I saw the mountain and its quiet breath,

the ocean full of colored songs‒all these lives together.

Water in the earth, in the clouds, in my body, in the tree.

I thought of the people and how much we needed healing.

“What do we do?” I asked the tree, kneeling at her feet.

“Rise up,” she said, “Come together‒wail and love and fight.”

“But how?”

“Stretch out your branches and call to your tribe,

they will reach out and find you, sisters united.

Go forth in action, your roots joined as one.”

“And what if we fail?” I worried.

She straightened her trunk as she answered.

“Rise up again. I did not grow this tall in an instant.”

© Angela Bigler