First forest firs

I will find the largest tree in the park
and spread my arms wide at its base;
Let them call me a tree-hugger and stare -
I want to look up and see the emerald canopy
fade into the depth of the stormy sky
and feel closer to something that has lived, and stood witness to,
much more than I ever will in my short existence.

Perhaps there was once a time when people
took to the shade of firs on restless-weathered days,
and perhaps this tree bent over the birth of spring's first fawns,
or the muted love-language of adolescents enraptured -
their youth a foolish, overflowing torrent of quickened pulse and passion,
soon wiped clean by years of adult sobriety.

I will feel my small consequence in face of such longevity,
humbled by the weight of hundreds of years of living
and share two arms' worth of innocence in peace,
taken in, folded, layer by layer,
between skin and bark.