The World Starts Breathing

    

     A new day is dawning, but someone is sleeping. Birds begin singing, sweet little cheeping, but someone still is sleeping. The wind starts moving, the world starts breathing, but someone isn't stirring. 

     From the window you can see the gardener, he is there day after day. Old and aging, he consistently comes and works some kind of magic on the hard ground beneath his feet. Maybe it is his wisdom, the great ideas that come only with experience, failure, and age, that bestowed upon him this special gift. The sky still streaked with red, he begins his work whistling that old hymn that no one had heard in ages. The familiar tune reaches the window far above, but it is closed and the sleeper does not hear the music. What a shame, for it is lovely. 

     He has with him today some seeds, the little kind that will roll right off the tip of your finger if you dare to lift your eyes. He picks up his familiar spade and begins to scrape the dirt, loosening the soil. After a while, he drops a single seed into the ground. His watering can offers this little seed a question with every fat drop that hits the earth. What will you be? How tall will you grow? How strong will you become? 

     Years later there is a sword fight taking place far above the ground. Two little boys challenge each other to a duel, each lost in imagination, each in a different world while up in that tree house. From inside, someone calls them in for lunch. They don't answer. The someone walks out back to get them, and they regretfully trade their play for a sandwich. The sandwich maker cannot help but wonder at the size and strength of the tree that grew right in the middle the garden, or what used to be the garden long before the sword fights began. 

     Someone cannot recall exactly when it was planted, though there's no question as to who planted it. So tall, so beautiful, so strong, it looked ready to move mountains. A tune comes to mind... where did it come from? Oh, but it's so lovely! Certainly there must be words as well... But what are they? After staring for a while , puzzled, the sword fight resumes quite as violently as before. Someone heads inside. 

     Someone remembers the tree and wonders if they could ever have 
been half as strong or half as beautiful. 

There is still time, but how many mountains could have been moved.

     A new day is dawning, and someone is waking. Birds begin singing, sweet little cheeping, and someone barely is waking. The wind starts moving, the world starts breathing, and someone is stirring.