Wind

Listen carefully. Can you hear it? Wind brushes through my upper branches. My brothers and I stand in this wind. It swept the snow around our trunks and plastered it along our sides. There is no snow on our branches, but it has piled around our roots to keep us warm.

The maple leaf once asked me if I was cold, but no, I am not cold. When my leaves began to turn and showered to the ground, my sap forsook my branches and hastened to my roots. There it courses through the earth and keeps me warm. There, the memory of summer remains and gives life to my otherwise lifeless shell.

Snow swept through the village. People long since pulled shut their doors and boarded up their windows. Now, they insulate their houses with memories and thoughts of summer, and huddle around dwindling fires.

How long has it been cold?

I cannot tell, but the wind in my branches sings. It sings the history of summer, of winter, of spring. It sings with words man cannot know and tells us what we never dreamed. I stand here and listen as the moon waxes and I know in a few days I will see him there, the man in the moon. He will look down on this earth and I will look up.