Deep Calls

The Old Ones say there was a time when man counted us equals.

A time when the roar of saws and the ax's bite were things not to be fathomed.

They say man called us by our true names and that is why we must serve them, bear them our precious fruit.

But to serve such a flawed Master. It cannot have always been this way.

The Old One's stories, they must be true. It has to be true that under heaven, the two-legged Beings God-Almighty calls man must have loved us, even if only for a short time.

They say our Life-Breather God first formed man from the dust of the earth, the very same earth that our roots have thrust themselves under.

Earth-kin.

Each created; Each named.

Inseparable under Heaven's Dome.

Why then? Why this rift between ones so similarly formed?



Deep calls to deep. Earth-kin fall, and reverberations sound all around us. Through the trembling air, across the scarred land.

They say man has forgotten why the seas rage, the skies fall, and the earth wrenches itself awry.

They have forgotten that they too ache and burn; The creaking of their bones, the rot and decay of their flesh.

They forget the glory and brilliance that was once theirs.

They forget the eternity that was cut short, west and west from here.

They've forgotten the face of the Father.



We too forget.

We forget that the wind through our keening leaves was once a great symphony, terrible and glorious to behold.

We forget that once, our sturdy trunks and knotted branches reached unhindered toward heaven, flawless and shimmering in His own reflection.

More than anything, we forget that it was from our extended branch that man plucked the deathfruit and condemned us all.

And so we groan, hardly knowing, remembering why we suffer.

Why we hate.

Why we kill.

Why we die.



We wait, as the birth pains grow stronger.

We wait.