ohheyian

It felt incredibly on-the-nose
to sit in front of a fire and think thoughts about life and meaning and carbon and combustion and a return to a previous form
then to look up and see a tree looking down, as trees sometimes do
and wonder what the tree saw or perceived, or the closest a tree can get to what I call “perceive”
about another tree being burned at hundreds of degrees after it lived a long life existing only as a tree
and to know that both trees were probably fine with this
the carbon came from far away and changed a lot over time to become that tree
then it became fire and it was good at that too, even if for a short time
the other tree might have seen a momentary connection between its pre-tree ancestry and post-tree existence
which are both endless points beyond the aperture of both our evenings
mine and the tree’s
and none of this is something one brings up in conversation around a fire
not to another person, and not to the tree either
the kind of thing you keep to yourself and keep drinking and sit a little closer to the fire when it gets colder
talking about brief interval topics, like family and relationships and jobs and all the shit happening between combustions.