ta'ammul

When I was about 7 or 8, I planted a tree on a land that’s not mine. It was part of a program, or perhaps, just a holiday inspired by colonization

But I think about that tree and wonder

If it’s still there

If it’s considered owned or free

Loved or just another part of a fascist regime.

And then there’s that tree in that forest in some place on another colonized land

Wrapped in yellow ribbon

Because I had felt real lonely even though I was in a wildly infatuated relationship

And wondered if the tree sometimes felt lonely too, especially when it was surrounded by so many just like it, but also not at all

If that tree felt any different

If it’s still there

If it’s considered owned or free

Loved or just part of an anti-earth system that’s trying to save face.

And I think about the sunflower we grew in a pop can

And how the planter died in a Honda accident because they took the turn wrong, and made it to the health centre too late, and how a medivac plane probably wouldn’t have made it in time anyways

And how he was only 13

And I wonder

If he felt freed by it

Like his sunflower, that had so little chance to survive and yet it outlived him

And how nature always outlives us, willfully ignorant of our plundering and unsatiable desire for conquest

And perhaps all these memories, faces, branches and arms held high up to the sky might just sprinkle more seeds than sorrow

And I wonder,

If we feel any freer by that hope

Or still just as controlled by thought

Loved, or just owned by another system built against us, tied together by an unravelling yellow ribbon