By Isabelle Gerhart
The aspen daughter was wild.
She galavanted through the trees and dappled puddles of sunlight like she was born from another
life.
The son of pines was soft.
He cushioned the weary travelers with his bed of needles and softly crept through pineconed
hollows.
The inheritance of willow was mystical.
She danced in time to moonlight and swayed under sunbeams like she was enchanted with
midnight song.
The heir to oak was strong.
He stood over the land and crowned little valleys with his jewel toned leaves and bestowed gifts of
nut meat on the little ones.
The children of the woods were all there.
They gathered together and stood amongst maples and bush; they were strong and good and
kind.
Then they grew up and were gone
Until all the little saplings came back.
Ah, yes.
The Queen of Aspen, King of Pine, Mage of Willows, and Emperor Oak were all in assemblage.
Under the sun shaded meadows where dusk and dawn kiss twilight and “until we meet again,”
The children came back and remembered who to be again.
In the forest, in the forest, in the forest,
The woods raised them and taught them how to be.
Children no more, they returned.
Grown-up, they remembered who to be when they entered the shade of that back world.
Through bonfire smoke and crinkled footfalls on ground,
The ones of the forest watched their young ones chase who they once were through the shade.
Time passes,
But the wood calls us back to who we were once we walk in the sun.
Who they were,
They see in the new sprouts taking a turn running through the wild.
All the children of the woods return at some point to remember who they are and run through
memory to
See all the ways they are still aspen, pine, willow, and oak.