Old Faithful...ha.

I started out small, insignificant, surrounded by elders and predecessors. A tiny seed holding the posibility of a new beginning in every tiny root that outstretched from my rapidly growing trunk.

I reached for the sun above me, fighting for it's rays and nourishment. I saw my brothers rise and fall at my side, and still I kept my pace. Up! Up...deeper into the ground, planting myself for eternity.

Finally strong enough, tall enough to provide a safe haven for lonely birds and hungry little squirrels. I don't mind them much, their incessant rattling and chirping keeps me amused. I didn't notice how lonely I was.

The breeze would play through my swaying limbs, uniting my sound to the choir erupting around me during cool autumn afternoons. Soon my leaves would fall, and I'd face the winter in a naked slumber...seemingly dead. But, it wasn't sad, it was part of my life. In May I'd spring alive again.

I heard your footsteps approaching, though, right before my yearly death. I had no leaves left, my trunk was gray...white...discolored much like the rest around me. You did not look up, much to my dismay, but I imagined a lovely face.

I grew preoccupied when the sound of your rage-filled sobs, and saw you lean tired against me. My branches could not lean down and hold you up, though every fiber in my being ached to do so. I simply watched.

Hours passed, and you calmed down. You spoke in words I didn't understand, it was not the sound of birds, or leaves...human language I had not learned, I had so little of those visitors. Then the pain hit cut into me.

Why were you stabbing into me with your pocket knife? I screamed the only way I knew how, dropping a few leaves on your head...tumbling in the wind. You looked up sadly, then leaned your forehead on my trunk. Whispering a name, you looked up a final time as if taking a picture of this place, of me to take with you.

I watched you walk away, with a slow confused step, hands in your pocket and head towards the ground. When you were out of sight, I felt a stinging where you cut - and searched myself for the new scar you left. Your initials cut deeply into me. Did I belong to you now? Would you come visit again? Sleep took over.

My wooden heart leaped when, in middle of my rebirth and bloom, I heard steps near my corner of the world. I set forth my best fruit, my most colorful flowers and waited. Yes, it was you...whistling, hands in your pocket but smile on that face I remembered as if it had been with me for the past several months.

You found me quickly, and looked up smiling as you traced those soft fingertips through the wound left months ago. You sat down and rested carefree in my shadow, while I gave you my company, my love. You came every day.

Summer, Fall, Winter...a year of your company, even in the cold. Some days you were happy and musical, others pensive and somewhat angry. I always noticed the far gaze you had, when you saw the letters carved in me. Did the letters mean memories? Did I hold sadness in them?

You came by with someone the next Spring. It took me by surprise, because I had been preparing for you and once again wearing my best...but she was beautiful. You were beaming, with an ethereal peace in your eyes and your hand holding hers. Pointing at me.

She paid little mind to me, and seemed almost uncomfortable sitting on my lap. Over the same roots you had found a home to during your darkest hours, you laid her and covered her with kisses. Her. She could hold you. I couldn't.

The sun was coming down solemnly, casting it's orange glow over my sadness. You both got up after making me witness the type of love given in secret, between two souls...not three. I decided to not watch you walk away, but nearly felt myself topple with a familiar sting hit my side, right under your scar.

Sure enough, she carved - and you helped - letter of her own, right under yours and embraced them with a misshapen heart. How could you let her? I belonged to you, not her. But you shrugged your jacket off, and laid it over her shoulders, casting a proud look at your work before disappearing into the woods.

I have been eternal, unchanging, dead and alive. I've nurtured and fed the weak. I've protected those who seek refuge in me from the horrors of this world...the kinds they face with nothing to soften the blow. You found and claimed me at my weakest. Or perhaps it was I who saved you at yours.

But it took you a few seasons, to heal from your wound. To face the world, and walk towards your happiness again.

I'll survive storms, snow and predators. I'll make it through floods and maybe even a blazing inferno. I will, most likely, outlive you. Time will not erase my wounds. I will face my world too, but unable to walk towards a new beginning.

My roots are firmly embedded in the ground. I will not change...

...nor will your mark fade.