Leaning Against A Tree

Deep and alone in a forest, I lean back against a tree, look up, see the sky, see the tree branches reaching for the light, I stand still, lean back, as long as I like, I rest, I look, I listen, I breathe, we exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide,  an intimacy in the silence, each giving what the other needs, in the sun, breaths of life,  I breathe deep,  a calmness moves through me, a warm gentle shiver through my limbs, and it makes me think of the tree’s limbs and I imagine what it would be like to be this tree I lean against, to be as resident as this tree, living and growing in the exact same spot on the earth where I was birthed, for my entire existence,  never leaving this spot, rooted to the ground, getting sustenance from the soil below and the air above, here day and night my entire life, and in my imagining I realize I am feeling the life in this tree and that the life in this tree is the same life in me, is me, then dawns the truth, that as long as I breathe the breath of life, I am always leaning against a tree.