Georgetown, Maine
The Forest - Nikita Gill
One day, when you wake up,
you will find that you've become a forest.
You have grown roots and found strength in them
that no one thought you had.
You have become stronger
and full of life-giving qualities.
You have learned to take all the negativity around you
and turn it into oxygen for easy breathing.
A host of wild creatures live inside you
and you call them stories.
A variety of beautiful birds nest inside your mind
and you call them memories.
You have become an incredible
self-sustaining thing of epic proportions.
And you should be so proud of yourself,
of how far you have come from the seeds of who you used to be.
*In James Crews. The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal.
* * *
Now, almost age 65, I sometimes pause and reflect, looking back and now, amazed at what I was and have become. Sure, there is that of me - and you - which cannot become or unbecome. Yet, in this body, there is no contradiction to say the unbecoming becomes. We share becoming with all Nature.
Impermanence is becoming, like death is resurrection. Seasons come, seasons go. I look out my window while writing this. I see the changes saying, "Fall is coming!" Winter, Spring, Fall, and Summer are not separate. They share one becoming. Without impermanence, would there be the possibility of anything new? Deaths and rebirths mark our lives. Beginnings and endings one. You are the you from the past, and you are the you first arriving today. You never see the same river twice. You never see your face two times. Your hands, no matter how young or old they appear, are always fresh. Old and new, then and now are not apart. Everything moves, even rocks and cement blocks.
Look inside your skin and see all your ancestors living and breathing there. They are they, and they are you. Your becoming is the same as your ancestors' becoming. What of you comes from you?
Do not try to resolve this apparent contradiction of the unbecoming becoming. Just see it, and appreciate it. Even more, embrace your humanness, hold it to yourself closely, and celebrate the journey fully. Looking back, can you not say, "Who would have ever dreamed it?!"
(C) brian k. wilcox, 2025
