Fertilizer

It’s so cold tonight. Even the squirrels are chattering their teeth together; they’re huddled up, worried about frostbite so much more than me. They perch on my shoulders and I have nothing to do but think. I wonder what it feels like to be them. To exist in order to gather, to copulate, to procreate. I don’t have such meaning in my life. I just stand here, offering shelter to anyone who needs it. I guess you could say I’ve become a bit of a doormat over the years. I simply sigh and sway whichever way I need to. I bend and contort, trying to fill my proper place in the canopy. Let some sun in here, keep it shaded there, always thinking. Thinking of everything around me. Everything that works ceaselessly, running in natural cycles on instinct and circumstance. Clockwork. The doves call out in the morning, the bats come out at dusk. Everyday. Clockwork. I simply stand and listen. I can’t say anything back to them; I can’t do anything really, except hold these denizens on my shoulders. What would they do without me? Someone would fill my place sooner or later. I’d turn into the dirt that feeds my replacement. I would be destroyed, not only in body, but also in the collective mind of those who ‘loved’ me. Sure, they’d miss my comfort at first, but they would soon forget. They would adapt and alter their clockwork lives to better suit their agendas. And I would be underfoot. Tell me. If a tree falls in a forest, would anyone hear my cry?