Another day of putting myself completely aside for others who don’t do the same for me, it’s called maturity but they call me a stupid unfeeling dick anyway because I can’t 100 percent of the time read beyond people’s minds to give them what they really want. Like my inability to mollify others because the endless line for food was the only thing available at the moment they demanded to eat. Or pretending not to be annoyed waiting for 20 minutes in a bone-chilling breeze on the emergency lane as the car shook from passing vehicles for photos to be taken (pictures that will be deleted before I ever see them). Or explaining why we have to wait on the highway for the horse to cross, the rider oblivious on her cell phone, ridiculous amounts of trash effortlessly destroying every vista. How does she get service up here, anyway? I can't control any of this, all I can do is watch what I once believed in slip through abysmal cracks…
But then I see something not a victim:
A single tree on the highway median,
Between the black and yellow mountains and the violet meadows.
It sways like it doesn’t care who’s watching,
It opens up its branches to all,
Shows leaves iridescent, translucent
From a sun that sifts through kaleidoscope clouds.
Locked in the ground, it chooses to be free,
Amid the elements, it lives in joy, it accepts
The context of its experience:
The deep red rock exposed on scrubby cliffsides,
Sajuaros lined to heaven on the green thorn hill,
A sheer mist framing distant snow-capped peaks.
