look out a window.
If you see green —
pause.
That is the rarest thing
you have ever seen.
In the observable universe,
there are more stars
than grains of sand on every beach on Earth.
Almost none of them have planets with surfaces.
Almost none of those have liquid water.
Almost none have an atmosphere that traps heat.
Almost none have plate tectonics that move.
Almost none have a moon big enough to steady them.
As far as we have ever seen,
only one of them
has trees.
A tree —
is a column of water
pulled out of the ground
by sunlight.
What you call wood
is captured sunlight,
woven into shape.
What you call a leaf
is a factory
the size of a coin
that converts photons into food
and feeds the entire kingdom.
somewhere in the White Mountains of California,
a single bristlecone pine
is alive right now.
It was here when the pyramids were built.
When Christ was born.
When Shakespeare died.
It is here
while you read this sentence.
nobody has counted its rings.
They do not want to disturb it.
Right now —
a tree somewhere
is breathing in
what you just breathed out.
And it is about to
give it back.
You and the tree
are one slow inhale.
Underneath every forest
is a network of fungal threads
connecting every tree
to every other tree.
Mother trees feed their children sugar.
Sick trees are kept alive by their neighbors.
Dying trees release their stored sunlight
to the next generation.
there are no individuals down there.
Only one slow, breathing organism
the size of a forest.
And atom 738
has been in trees too.
Forty thousand years ago,
it was in the heartwood of a pine
that fell in what is now Norway.
The pine decayed.
738 went back into the soil.
Into a fern.
Into a small mammal hiding from the cold.
Through bone, river, ocean, cloud,
rain on a field, root of a tree, leaf —
and finally,
into you.
When a tree falls in a forest,
it does not stop being part of the forest.
It feeds it.
It softens into a long, mossy bench
where the next generation grows.
There is no waste in a forest.
There is no end.
Only handing off.
There is a tree near you
right now.
It is one hundred years old.
Or five hundred.
Or five thousand.
It was here before your grandparents.
It will be here after your grandchildren.
It has done nothing this week
but stand in the same place
and breathe.
walk past it.
Touch the bark.
It has been
waiting.