I’m standing here, staring at a tree  
with its roots buried deep, like an old memory  
that’s lost its sense of time.  
The leaves tremble a little in the wind,  
as if remembering all the storms it has weathered—  
the lightning strikes, the floods,  
the nights so quiet you could hear the soil sigh.

It didn’t ask for any of this,  
just like you don’t ask for a lifetime  
with its little joys and little sorrows,  
its moments of pure joy  
and the long stretches of rain  
that seem to last forever.  
But it stands there, unflinching,  
as though it’s accepted something we all know  
but can’t quite face:  
nothing lasts.

And yet, there’s a strange beauty in that,  
like when you look at your reflection  
in the dark window of a train  
and see a life already passing,  
but you don’t look away.

Now the tree is older,  
its bark a little worn,  
its branches reaching out,  
as though it might hold onto the sky  
a little longer, just in case.  
And when it finally falls—  
as all trees do, eventually—  
it won’t regret the winds it fought,  
the sunburn it endured,  
the way it held on to every raindrop  
like a secret.

There are saplings around its base now,  
little versions of the tree,  
still stretching toward the light.  
And in that way, it doesn’t quite leave,  
but remains,  
in the quiet memory of what once was  
and what is still to come.