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What Trees Do
Chris Anderson

Every morning I am given all this wisdom
and every afternoon I throw it all away.

I can’t pray.
I can only walk: the forest is my audience.

There is a hill behind me, it has always been
behind me, and it has been given to me to climb,

especially in the summer and in the morning
when it is cool and soft and I can tell the trees

all know and love me.
If I were to die at the top, overlooking

the valley, if my body were to drop,
the trees wouldn’t move.

They would never leave me.
They would just keep rising.

 

 

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