The Tree

There was once a Tree. It lived in a forest, and it was just like all the other trees. Together, they were young saplings, and in the morning the sun would rise on them, their heads nodding in the golden light, and in the evening, the breezes would blow on them, and small birds would call to one another joyfully from within their young, green leaves.
The Tree was just like all the others. And it was pleased.
But in time, the rest of the trees grew. They grew tall and broad, and the Tree grew only a little. In the day, the sun's warmth dappled it through the screen of others, the night breezes caressed it only in small, stolen breaths, and the birds built there nests in loftier places.
The Tree, now wakeful and unhappy, could not rest at night with the dreaming forest. Instead, it stared ever at the moon when that silver lady rose and fell in the sky. It strained to see her through the broken sky it could see, and every evening when the pale light fell upon it, it sighed a soft sigh, a small sigh, a sigh of relief. It didn't know why.
The days were raucous with the noise of the forest, the tall trees rustled mightily, and the Tree was lost. But in the night, only the silent moon lit the leaves and branches, and only the Tree watched her.
There came a night when the Tree was gripped with a great sadness. It had been sad before, but this sadness was like waves, this sadness was like floods. The pain within it rent and tore, it burned. The moon had not yet risen, and the Tree feared it might never rise - it might never rise again. In that moment, it knew it must find the moon, that if it didn't, it would perish and become yet another part of the forest's story, a story of the dead that fed the living.
It cried out in the way a Tree can, waving its branches, rustling, creaking, straining, and little by little, it felt the earth release it. First the root that was not quite covered was allowed free, and then the roots that spanned around it. Beautiful, they came up from the ground like vines, living and breathing, freed from the moist earth, free from the darkness. Until, finally, the Tree's heart root also was free, and the Tree, transcendent, terrified, beautiful, moved from its home, the place it had always been, and slipped from the forest, its roots like a thousand living ribbons, carrying it quietly and effortlessly out.
The Tree reveled in the joy of it, in movement and elegance and the freedom. It flew through the sleeping woods, and finally came to the openness on the edge. The place it had never been. Without fear, as if in a dream, it stepped onto the long grasses, its roots playing and dancing around it. And then it saw the moon. She had risen from the East and it had not noticed her pale, perfect light in its journey.
It stood, perfectly still except for the ever-moving, ever-undulating roots. It soaked in the silver of the moon, the brightness of the stars, and felt freed again.
And then it began to move - to dance - across the field, this way and that, spinning, leaping, stretching. The great moon above it seemed to get closer as it did so, the Tree, free, the moon, pouring out its love in white waves.
Today the Tree stands alone in the field. It is not a tall tree, but it is a beautiful one. Birds come to roost in it, as it stands alone in such a place, and it is happy. Each day it stands green and good under the sun, but it waits truly for the night, when the darkness shows the silver of the moon.