Patient As A Tree

 If we're looking for an example of perfect patience, a tree works very well. In fact a tree is the ideal symbol of patience. It doesn't complain or blame. It doesn't fight back when it's attacked. You can hammer nails into it for signage. You can strip its bark until it dies. You can chop holes in it and hack most of it off and yet it tries to keep on growing. That is all a tree does on its own. It grows. Or tries to. A tree is either planted or starts from a seed or a root. From then on, it either makes it or doesn't. Some of the ones who "make it", are cut down for various reasons, most of which are its uses to mankind. Trees are trimmed and can be eaten in different ways by different creatures. They hurt no one deliberately. Anyone struck down by a tree, should blame the wind or another accidental source because trees don't move on their own. Trees, as we all know, provide shelter and oxygen to their surroundings. They also offer entertainment. You can climb them, make bon fires, put ropes on them to swing, build little houses inside them or simply climb them for fun. Some feed us fruit and nuts and leaves and sap. They give us everything they have without an argument. Trees work. Logging companies hitch their gear to them and drag other dead trees to trucks to be hauled away for lumber, paper and fuel. Some trees are pretty and are fostered for their blossoms or shape or ability to festoon gardens. Trees are an ideal building material for their memory. Yes, they have memory. But they don't talk about it. They swell when it's wettish, shrink and dry out when it isn't and they bend when coaxed with steam. Trees are used in shipping for masts and hulls and they become factories, fences, barns and bistros. Even art. They float in the ocean and give sea birds a place to dry out; in lakes they offer turtles a place to sun. They line beaches and are good to sit and loll against. They  give shelter to countless creatures. They become fodder for young trees that are just starting out. They are objects of adoration and dislike and beauty and ugliness and profit, depending upon who is regarding them. They can be abused and sold and worked with never an objection heard.  They are often seen as close to holy things and in a form, are worshipped by some. They are honoured and preserved well beyond their actual lifetime by others. They have timed lives just as all living things. They can be hugged for a time until, if lucky, they will grow much too big for even groups to hug. When it's their turn to die, if they get that far, their rings can be counted while we reminisce on what those years show. When you see a tree, think tree and be.