The Purpose of Trees - James Lilliefors

During the storm,

you lost the shape of what you were,

forced to bend and bow, 

this way and that, 

in winds as harsh and unforgiving

as human rage.

Why did you just stand there,

in the face of such indignity?

I think I know the answer now.

You stood there because

that’s what you do. Unlike us,

whose tendency is to flee.

You, who stood stoically for decades

alone, must have known that the storm

would quickly pass. That its aftermath

would be so bewitchingly calm that it might

be perceived as a form of denial.

You stand now as living witnesses,

with wounds that defy epiphany,

the streets covered with your

broken branches, your smashed fruit.

You, who knew the storm

better than we did, stand to teach us:

how the will to survive

outlasts the will to destroy.

These are a few of the things

I might have told my childhood

friend, many years ago, when he asked me,

“What is the purpose of trees?”

“To give us fruit. And paper.

To provide shade,” I told him instead.

But after the storm, I know there are better answers.

In the divine mirror, we see briefly

who we are, then turn away and forget.

This, too, is the purpose of trees: to show us

what we don’t remember we know,

what we may never see on our own.

You stand there because you are substance

and we are still mostly shadow.

Originally published by Door Is A Jar magazine's Winter 2023 issue.

James Lilliefors is a poet, journalist, and novelist, whose writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Ploughshares, The Miami Herald, Anti-Heroin Chic, and elsewhere. His first poetry collection, SUDDEN SHADOWS, will be published in October.