What if,
instead of shooting
people into space,
we grew our way there?
What if,
we built tree forts in trees,
so that we could plant trees
in the tree forts,
and when they grow,
build more forts
in those trees and
continue that process
while adding gardens
all along the way
along with more tree forts
for everyone to live in
and everything would be connected
to form a living structure
that continually grew around us
as we continually grew within it
and our atmosphere would
expand
to encompass an amount of space
that we could have never imagined,
and we would grow with the trees
stronger, sturdier, and healthier
rather than continually
contract
and thin by thickening the pollution
in the space within our atmosphere
as we die with the trees
weak, withered, and dis-eased?