Tea with the gods

Why the hell are people not out there every day staring up at the trees, gasping in awe at their absurd magnitude? I mean, go on, look at them! Look at them! Those weirdos give us life, for Christ's sake! Without us even asking, they deliver us our daily breath! Fellow life passengers who offer us shade from the beating sun or an umbrella to keep the rain from our heads. We should be bowing down in servitude and gratitude to those woody giants. If you shed the cataracts of indifference to the world around you, you will wake up one morning and be speechless.  That small tree in your garden or the one at the end of the street you ignore every time you walk past it will shine like a beacon. Go on! Look at it!  That’s not just a tree! That is a fucking masterpiece growing out of the ground, twisting and reaching upwards before separating into hundreds of branches, some exploding once a year into a floral, green frenzy, followed quickly by a vibrant, colorful, messy dive into a skeletal winter slumber.   Tell me that doesn’t deserve a knighthood at the very least. Those old brutes have been around since before we clambered out of the water and grew legs, their gnarly ways witness to all sorts of horrors and beauty.

“Oh, great ones, how do you make those nooks where birds make their nests or squirrels store their nuts for those long, dark winters? Did you mean to make that extra layer that now twists around your trunk?”

Those hulking Red Woods, the pop stars of their green world, don’t seem to have a problem finding awe in people. And yet they still cut them down. So sure, crane those little necks and see those trees that touch the heavens. I hear they have tea with the gods on Tuesdays.