The tree said:
I am not my branches —
my branches are just pathways.
I am the pulsing center of energy
that pushes up and out and down
through branches and roots,
and if none are there, or if
they’re in the wrong place,
I make new ones

You and I, the tree told me,
are not that different.
You are not your limbs,
nor yet the sum
of who you’ve known,
and what you’ve done.
You’re not bound to the patterns
you’ve lived so many different times

You, too, can pull yourself back
to the dynamic source core,
you can concentrate your center
and from there surge out
in the way that makes
the most embracing umbrella
your love can offer.
You, too, can stabilize the atmosphere,
you, too, can establish life.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 7, 2016