Deciduous Trees and Fire Hydrants

Trees are rather amazing things.

Unlike fire hydrants,

Their leaves fall to the ground

Leaving their branches bare

As if they were forever reaped of life

But yet when spring comes around

Their leaves grow back

Perhaps even more dense

Only to turn golden and fall again

the next autumn.

A fire hydrant,

on the other hand,

Stays about the same.

Throughout the seasons,

apart from the few times it’s used,

owing to old houses

or improper use of microwaves,

It kind of just stays around

Aging, rusting naturally.

For as long as they can transport water from beneath

their extensive roots or metallic pipes,

they provide to any one who may need shade

or water to extinguish a burning microwave

But one day their useful subservience must come to an end.

Trees get cut down for their wood,

and hydrants for their cast iron.

When they’re no longer able to live

or perform their given task,

Then death becomes their destiny.

Unfortunately, though tragic their story may be

few weep and lament the death of a tree

or the removal of a fire hydrant.

Trees, in the end, don’t do much that’s meaningful,

their stories embedded in the rings that tell,

though long and eventful its life may be

It has only seen and observed vicariously,

of the crisp, glistening January snow,

the clear, cold stream as it jovially flows.

The warm petrichor of the summer rain,

and the laughter of children on Harvest Day,

The hydrant stands sentinel, it’s always in sight.

but it stays grounded for all its days and nights.

Inanimate, it could not see or feel a flame

Much less help out if a fire raged.

Its purpose was endowed to it en masse,

An item, soulless and meaningless

beauty sacrificed for utilitarian usefulness,

which even then it ultimately may lack.

But human spirit, in its ability to resonate with others, even fire hydrants,

brings it up, exalts and ascends it above all trees and fire hydrants.

Being able to reach into the days

when everything is wrapped in a melancholy haze

and bring color into it;

Being able to be in the moment,

when dawn and its rosy fingers rise above the horizon,

and remember it;

Being able to stay in those laid-back days,

on a hammock in the canopy of trees,

and enjoy it;

Being able to be close to your loved ones,

by the fireplace on Christmas Eve,

and love them;

The pain, exasperating, and excruciating;

The mundanity, tedious and repetitive;

The pressure, ever-growing and mounting;

The despondency, malevolently pushing us down,

making us feel that maybe, just maybe

we weren’t deciduous but rather

our leaves were falling once and for all;

The sadness, recurrent and heavy *insert poetic analogy* ,

from somebody who once brought

warmth, and color, and laughter into our lives

The sadness when they are no longer here,

all of it is too real.

But it is what we love that makes us human.