The weeping willow stands high on the hill, its great shoulders low, head bent, pondering over the valley below. This hulking creature sprouted from the tiniest of seeds. It watched the first people as their eyes blazed with the first sparks of fire. It saw their children as they scampered about the grass, watched as their bodies grew big and strong, muscles taught like vines. Then it saw them age, wither and die. It watched as their children mourned, and their children’s children, and their children after them. The weeping willow saw centuries, saw time cast out before it like a fishing line with no water to disappear into, a line without end.
It stood strong for generations, but as it learnt, everything good must come to an end. The willow bends its creaking body, now scrawled with lovers’ names and unkept secrets, down towards the soft earth beneath it. It lays its weary head down among the moss and glistening leaves, and it sighs. The long, low rush of air flows through the valley, ghosting over the treetops and sending ripples across the lake. The weeping willow does not cry. Its final breath is not marred by tears or trembled by fear. The willow has seen many lifetimes, seen the love spilt out at many funerals. The willow does not fear death, it embraces it. This is not giving up. It is simply time, time to rest.
When the last sigh has been breathed, the willow’s body moulds into the earth. With time, the moss stretches its green hands over the wooden expanse, holding it close. The leaves on the long fluttering branches brown and die and fade back into to dirt from where they came. But this is not giving up, you see. This is starting over.
A tiny green shoot claws its way from the darkness and bursts into the sunlight of the surface. Another, already spindly and swaying, is waving from nearby. Then another and another. The green shoots fight their way upward to discover that they are not alone. Surrounding the body of their mother, they thrive.
Ten years go by. Then ten more. The sprouts grow big and strong; their branches stretch up and out then down. The leaves lightly brush the floor, swaying with the wind, crying with the rain, shrieking with the thunder and lightning as it slams its electric hands into the ground. The trees live, and then they die. And then they live again, unending.
This is, admittedly, an older one. I was (and still am) finding my feet and working out how I wanted to write. As always, I invite constructive criticism and critique. Feel free to have a chat in the comments. What would you write with the prompt “resolve?”