Do you want to live forever?
said the Gardener to me,
tending to a creeping thought
and watering the sea.

I replied, no, but thanks, you see,
I'd rather be a tree.
And spread my branches out
to
shelter creatures underneath.

A tree? A tree? He whispered tentatively.
Why, I can't remember what it be.
That word. That thought. That memory.
He shook his head and shrugged at me.

(So I scratched a crude drawing in the dirt
and The Gardener squatted there pondering at it a while,
robes lifted up above bony knees)

But I do that too, said he, jumping up quite suddenly.
Pardon me, but I just see no need - No need to be a tree!
Just beg a princely role of me
and I shall fill your fantasy!
I said, thanks, but well, you see..
I'd rather be a tree.

He paused for quite a while.
Then said okay, a little hesitantly.
Then said that he would not be that okay
until he sees these silly things called trees.
And until he sees the purpose of the thing it is
that means so wonderfully much to me
to
want to be a tree.

So he turned me to a tree and put me in a park.
Where couples came and families
and cuddling lovers in the dark.
And colored birds were friends to me
and I sheltered all of them beneath.
And spread new life through little seeds
and quenched the world its need to breathe.
And in the autumn dropped my leaves
to feed the insects in the weeds.
I stretched my roots in luscious ground and saw such beauty all around.
I was
old and happy as only a tree
could ever wish or hope
to be.
And then one day I saw a face, quite out of place, was watching me.

And he said..

You are very naturally a tree
and have done so extraordinarily well in green
that I will leave you be to live your dream.
And as he walked away, it seemed
he smiled happily back at me.