Dear Earth, I am not the forest.

From here I can see the buds on the naked magnolia tree. They tip every branch like a frozen flame – silvery white, small, quiet. Each of them is busy gestating a single bloom.

I’d love to be the whole tree. I’d love to exude all that sweet perfume. I’d love to be frothy with flowers and feed all those honeybees. I’d love to shower beauty on all those around me.

Even better, I’d love to be the forest. I could be alder and copper beech, rowan and oak. I could be deadwood for mysterious fungi and branches for squirrels to dance along. I could be basket canes, blackberries, medicine, pointy-noised shrews. I could exhale clouds of oxygen and hug all that carbon close.

I’m not the forest. I’m just one little bud, pregnant with petals. Maybe they’ll be white shreds like Magnolia stellata, or maybe they’ll blush gold like ‘Sunsation’. Maybe this year the frost will get to me and I’ll wither. That’s okay. I’m not the only one blossoming.

Dear Earth, thank you for the reminder that I only have to do my portion. Thank you also for reminding me that this little bud is made of the same stuff as waterfalls, wildebeests and thirty-metre whales. Together, we are magnificent.

Love, Satya <3

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Gratitude for the photo by Markus Spiske temporausch.com from Pexels