The Falling

A tree in the forest falls. If no one is there to hear, does it really fall? We always ask the wrong question. It’s not how we know, but why.

 Life is both tree and forest. Like psychedelic drugs or fulfilled desire, nature soothes the brain. This oneness feels so real; as true as childhood – secure in a seamless world of parental love. From this simple faith all other memory flows.

Morning dew glistens. We are leaf and light as we touch the moisture then lick our fingertips. Everything now molecular, either water or its absence, even the murmur of the warm breeze and the textured, silent bark.

A more tactile oneness, yet only one more moment. Fecundity passes, the cycle spins, seasons go then come then go again whether blossoming branch or decaying log.

Like any other rush, oneness evaporates. We work and fuck and dream and wake. Our mind is in the biological husk, but in control of that husk is the lie we only gradually accept as such. We suspect for a long time but always too busy to know the ceaseless, cellular documentation. The ultimate physical act is a final shrug and smile.

Then we can be at peace. We’ve walked the silver cord. The soil knows which root makes what sound no matter who hears or not. Our ears incidental to the noise, because rustle or crack or thud is not who we are. We’re not the upright or the fallen, we’re the falling.

Copyright 2020, held by author