“she blossoms under your aegis” the large vaporous presence punctiliously hissed I nodded imperceptibly “watch over her, she may be chosen” it went on, it’s long sibilants fading into the psithurism of the season I glanced at the terrifying figure briefly counting the aeons passed since I last conversed with something ancient my first assignment was a tree; that’s when I first fell in love with them — those towering constructions of sugar I looked after it as a mere sapling watching its rings become numerous its stature languidly become a great multi-foliate presence in the verdure of the first forests I watched, until its great branches dried, still reaching for the face of the beloved Helios cracked, under the weight of the myriad creatures who came to call it home hollowed, to become the dust whence it arose I watched until its massive trunk collapsed onto the meadow’s mantle where emmet army toiled bearing the little pieces of my treasured ward on its back leaving behind only what may properly settle the debts owed to the eukaryotes I watched until long after its shade was made light for yearning new twigs long after the rustling songs of its ten thousand leaves faded from memory long after the fragrance of its peeling barks scattered in the hasty winds [10-XII-21]