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Description
A blade of grass stares in awe
at a towering oak.

All around him his patch-mates wave their young green sprouts,
greeting the wind in joy;
the gentle breeze swaying them back and forth, and they
laughing like schoolchildren on a swing.

They mingle, knotted and woven,
displaying their patchwork face,
basking languorously
when the sun is high and the wind is still.

They droop,
drenched,
as the rains wash over them,
shivering, huddled
into their neighbors,
seeking comfort
and escape.

And every day this enterprising young sprout
watches the oak in envy.

And one day he works up his mighty courage and asks,
"Isn't it nice to be a big, tall tree?"

At first the oak does not reply;
he is preoccupied
with oaky things, no doubt.

But eventually the small voice
catches his attention,
and he espies there the tiny blade
with long patience
and aged understanding.

And for three days
he thinks.

Every day the young blade looks up at him in glee,
hoping the great, big tree will hear him this day
and honor him with oaky wisdom,
and goes to bed disappointed,
dozing sadly under the moon.

On the third day, he asks the question once again,
and for a long time no response comes.
But then, echoing through the earth, the voice shakes him,
and the oak says:

"You wish to be tall
and strong
like me one day, child.
You wish to weather
storms
and droughts
and live nearly as long as you like,
your great boughs upholding
oceans of leaves,
and every day
getting closer to the sky.
You wish your roots
to extend far
underground, and far past where you stand,
and up-heave the hard walkways of man
with long, slow, quiet ease.
You wish your hide to be shaggy
and tough,
and your leaves to be full
and green,
lifting each morning
to strive upwards,
all of them spreading
into a canopy, a galaxy
of green
to soak up the energy you need.

Is that right?"

The small sprout thinks of this momentarily,
weighing his response,
and looks up again with defiance and pride, and says,
"Yes.
That's about right."

The oak chuckles lightly,
shaking the blade,
and says:

"Child,
you may not see me sway
when the storms rage,
but to my core I am straining
to keep my great weight upright.
And I have seen my brothers felled
by forking fire
from the sky,
and felt its whip-lash
upon my own back,
though my life was spared.
I have had the ape-men take
from my very body
my living limbs, to burn,
to build with,
to provide space around me
for their structures.
Creatures nest
and creatures roost
in holes they have dug in me
to profit on my many years
of hard work
and growth.
My leaves are plagued
by minuscule organisms
that could not grasp my true size,
and I am helpless
to defend myself.

I have lived long,
and I am strong.
Strong enough
to weather these things,
but only because
I have always grown upwards,
seeking light.

And my success
makes me vulnerable;
my size
makes me a resource.

As there is a price to being small
there is a price to being large,
but I like to think
as I grow
that there is more to being big
than weathering difficulties.

What say you,
Small-Blade the Brave?"

Small-Blade,
though generally unable to hold attention
to anything for long,
had listened raptly,
and was honored by his new title.
And as he looked up
at the mighty tree, he said:
"I want to grow up and be an oak
just like you."

Beneath him the earth shook
and rolled
and bounced with the great sound
of the oak's deep, resounding laughter,
as if to say:
the courage of the young
far surpasses the expectation of the old.
And he looked down at Small-Blade and said:

"I hope so, small one.
I hope so."