The Giving Tree

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I meet you in the backyard, where you are always waiting.
You stand, awakened, both still and alive at the same time.
When I hear the dawn chorus in your branches, and the way the wind moves the pages of your leaves, I forget everything I know about pages and branches and leaves.
Even when I have forgotten about you, you offer me these gifts. To you, there is no me and you.
When I take a mindful breath, the inhale that was yours is now mine, and the exhale is neither mine nor yours.
Old friend, our friendship has carved deep grooves into the floodplain of my mind. I know that even if I have burned and logged, dammed and ravaged every corner of this earth, you will still exist in the riverbeds of my consciousness.
There, unafraid, you will be still
alive, waiting for rain.