The trees spoke to me
at first in a warm-hearted way
that reflected the golden rays in the sky
and told me everything would be alright.
But its leaves told a different story
their spidery veins pulsing
with a painful sort of blood
cold and sterile against leathery bark.
The bark of a trunk that told a story
of gracefully weathered years,
showing cracks from when pain
broke its once indestructible surface.
A simple sort of magic
intricately held in its rings
that always gave way to a new year
of eerily human hope.
These leaves, they spoke
of intimidating definitions
whispering the secrets of operation
that the universe was discovered to follow.
Discovery, an exhilarating word in itself,
Begins to bore us as clock hands run,
eventually tiring out as it becomes
perpetually printed into the dirt.
But these leaves map out worlds
we used to dream of discovering ourselves,
and discovery becomes a frigid method
children used to pretend.
As time spins on
and the secrets are found out,
the magic is finally smothered
its smoke suffocating us.
Choking out supposed weeds
that maybe could have grown
into lovely trunks like the one
I had met that morning.
The one that whispered to me the last secret,
coded in the wind, hidden from the leaves
that Discovery still existed in youth,
because the one thing we’ve truly yet to discover
is happiness.
