| Hey, it's Bri here. I felt bad cause I didn't bring any poetry, and I have all this good stuff laying around (even though it's not mine.) Here's a really long one I found by this poet whose webbie I used to read a couple years back (I saved her good ones). I can't find her website anymore, it's become inactive. This is Wilted, Brown Needles by Christina
Next to where the roses grow, the forest starts. The more needles cover the ground the more you walk away from the roses. In the beginning, the trees are bald, their branches are thin and don't start before a certain height.
They have a few forgotten needles that are brown and wilted already. They look as if they were taken right from the ghost stories your friends always tell when sitting around the bonfire; the forest where the murder happens, must be full of those empty trees.
As you walk further into the forest, further and further away from the place where the roses grow, the trees will have more and more needles, green ones, healthy ones. And suddenly, the sun starts shining, and the branches of the trees wave in a strange but beautiful rhyme, and it is as if the sun shine was playing the most beautiful song on their needles.
Anyone who walks here, is a smile on their face as certain as the blue sky is. This must be the place where in December, fathers come with their sons to pick the most beautiful Christmas tree, one with as many thick branches as possible, as green as possible. They cut it and put the dead tree in their living room, with water around its feet to keep it alive and to celebrate the day to which most kids start the count down the moment it is past.
Hiding the fact that the tree is dead under the green needles with sparkling decoration in all colors of the rain bow, angels and Santa Claus hanging from the branches, their faces lit by red candles. Not all green trees are cut and taken home to the families, most of them remain in the wood. The moon watches over them and in the stars, they see what their life is all about. When a shooting star crosses the sky, all they wish for is another sparkle of the stars high above them to tell them the truth.
Maybe, I am one of those stars. I remember having the very same smile on my face. But I wasn't one of the green, healthy trees. I was one of the ghost trees for which living was far too difficult and who had shed all their green needles long ago. I always knew I'd once been a healthy, green tree; but then, bad times came, and then came good times, and so on.
But the good times kept getting much shorter every time the season changed, and eventually, I lost some of my branches and green needles with every change. It took me a lot of strength to hold the few needles I had left; they were brown and wilted, didn't hold much life anymore, but to me, they were beautiful because they were all I had. And I put all my strength into them. It was hard, yes. But I saw that I could never get all my green needles back, and I didn't want them, because I knew there was a reason why I was different. And over the times, I came to like it. My brown, wilted needles. They were all I had, and with that, they were not any less beautiful than the others' green ones.
One day, a girl walked through the wood, and she had a couple of flowers in her arm. Roses, red roses, so much the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. From so high above, I could see that she was carrying them to the near cemetery and put them down on a grave. From that moment on, I watched the roses. The beauty and grace that lay within them was incredible; although they'd been cut, they'd lost nothing of their beauty. I knew that the green trees weren't like them. They lost their beauty the moment Christmas was over.
But maybe I could be like them? Brown and red, that matches good, doesn't it?
Days went by, and the roses slowly started losing their color. With every moment of wind, rain and the lack of water, they wilted and turned from their cheerful and graceful red to brown. Just the way my branches and my needles were, brown.
The thought that maybe, once upon a time, I was not just a green tree but such a beautiful rose, carried me through. 'The wilted roses are brown, just like me, so I once was beautiful too', it kept echoing in my mind. That meant that on the inside, I was still as beautiful. I held on to those thoughts for many many years. And when the green trees became less and less around Christmas, and after a while, none of them were there anymore, and all the other trees around me had been cut and died, I was still standing there. Because I was beautiful.
Now, today, when I look down from above, what I see is a huge, empty field where all the trees used to be. And next to the field, there is a grave. It is a fresh grave, a small one with a wooden cross. A little sheet of paper with a message to the one who's lying there, framed by a bit of lace, is all that makes sure the few people who pass by know that a loved one lies beyond the ground. Every now and then, someone comes and puts a red rose on the grave, stops for a moment, folds their hands and looks up to the sky. When it's night, I sparkle and twinkle at them. Yes I loved you too.
Maybe I wasn't a tree, but just another girl. Maybe I was always a rose inside. But also roses have thorns. And maybe this is not your grave, but mine. And you are the rose. |
