Petrified Tree

When the sacred-most seed fell upon my soil

I barely noticed

My land was barren, neglected

Aching from a waste of space

When the seed sprouted

the land took to life

All was fertilized by its growth

As the taproot descended deep within

vitality spread across the grounds

Easily the root dropped to the deepest depths

Discreetly, quietly binding itself to the land

clinging to every particle of earth

wrapping itself around every rock

Then pushing up a most magical tree

And the land praised it

knowing it as everything it needed

as everything the land promised itself

Birds sung of its hope and providence

As its blossoms bore the brightest fruit

that never ripened

staying hard, high and out of reach

mocking the hungry below

un-plucked, unbitten

forbidden, yet continuing to grow

refusing to fall to earth

Too late, for the roots of this tree are engulfing

spreading so wide, descending so deep

that they devour the land

becoming inseparable from it

rebuffing all attempted extrication

And there it remains

pridefully petrified

Entirely enmeshed with the earth

Never to be burned

Its fruit never to be eaten

It is the land

the land belongs to it

And every subsequent seed to fall

can never deliver its roots deep enough

nor cast its leaves high enough

to ever generate new fruit here

So the land starves

The birds sing of empty stomachs

of abandoned nests

The land forever longs for the tree to fall

clinging to it with the same force with which it’s clung