Reading trees along the way

Trees along the way are signs that everything will be all right, even though you know everything will not be all right because everything is everything that is and isn’t right.

But as the trees and miles multiply, the signs seem to localize; everything everywhere becomes the everything immediately around you, and future tense becomes present tense, the only time that makes sense because it’s the only time you have.

Everything is you and the trees along the way.

And the trees along the way are green and old, evidence that the trees and the way are sympathetic, that the way here is no threat to the trees—indeed, that the trees so close to the way are not in the way but the defining part of it.

This is the way of trees.

Offering evidence that everything is all right.

Even though, when you think about it, when you crawl back inside that tiny mediated mind that holds everything you can’t see around you, well, it can’t possibly be true, this natural contention that everything is all right.

Still, there are more trees along the way, more signs to read and ponder.

Everything here is all right.

Ah, that’s what the the signs, the trees along the way, really mean.

What you need, what we need, is more of here.

Everywhere.