Among the neighborhood of trees we trotted, happy as saplings and shaking our leaves.
Mossy mushrooms spiraled as staircases round their crusts, Fitting for the tree frogs climbing their crinkled husks.
Some were great elders, hunchbacked and creased, And some were bald, retired from green.
Many held buzzing beehives as babies in their boughs, And others suckled the songbirds with sap from their groves.
We followed their roots that bridged over brooks, and then we see covered among leave: two stumps.
Ferns became their foliage, Their hand in hand roots formed many humps, And we counted their years by the heartwoods laid bare in their trunks.
From their bullseyes we traced ring after ring, Until we reached the youngest of its century-old skins.
They huddled side by side, As two hatched eggs lie in a leafy nest, And we watched as they rested in each other’s silence.
We stood at the feet of the great sister stumps and elders of the woodlands.
Not but babes and ankle-biters we are, They smiled at our young forest friendship.
We followed back the crooked paths and left them to their slumber, And though not but a seedling, I thought and Idreamed, Of our sisterhood one day turning the age of the rings of the trees.
— Ellie.