PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
As seeds we’re imprisoned from the moment we’re released from our mothers’ branches. Pressed by rough fingers into prepared medium in small plastic squares, our sprouted roots escape through drainage holes to touch our kins’. As seedlings we are shifted to larger squares until mature enough to be burlap-sacked. For years we grow in orderly rows outside; together, but alone. Finally we are relegated to holes surrounded by cement on city streets. We will never know joy of community like our wild relatives. We begin to believe being safe from chainsaws and bulldozers is worth the price we pay.
[99 words]
Inspired by watching the documentary based on The Hidden Life of Trees. Learn more here.
I took my title from a Roxy Music tune.
Rochelle Wisoff-Fields is the jolly host of Friday Fictioneers.
Tao Talk 
Yes, trees are our future.
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Glad you agree, James.
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Treemendous writing.
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Thanks, Ron!
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Very well told, trees are such an integral part of life. Compliments of the season to you
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Michael, thanks much, we need them to live which so many fail to acknowledge. It’s like saying our lungs are optional.
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What a great take. Luckily the root-and-mycorrhiza network will find them if there is even a bit of soil and grass. But you make me wonder what I’m doing to my house plants…
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Thanks, Gabi, and I have to wonder the same about mine.
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Very good metaphoric read I got from this. Human condition. 💙
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Thank you and glad you saw it could be a metaphor for humans.
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awesome Li 🙂
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Thanks, Carol Anne!
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This isn’t just about trees, is it?
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Good catch, Neil 🙂
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Great take Li.
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Thanks much, Sadje.
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You’re most welcome. Love your new Display picture 😍
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Thanks a lot, Sadje. Thought it was time to put a current pic in.
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It’s lovely
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More trees in cities! They help with climate control. Break up the concrete walls. A unique take on the prompt, L.
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I agree they need to stop encasing them in concrete. Let them have the space they need to grow large and connected with their treemates.
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Can’t agree more.
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Dear Lisa,
I love this perspective on the secret life of trees 😉 (Rhymes with Secret Life of Bees…yeah I had to point out the obvious. 😀 ) At any rate, a pleasant read.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Rochelle, thank you so much. I think maybe the author chose that title for just that reason? Glad you enjoyed the story.
Shalom,
Lisa
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Beautifully written, Lisa. You grabbed me from the get and I wanted to know where this was going and we have to believe they are still communicating with their kin in a world we can only fathom. Plus, we know, if the humans disappear, they will grow and take over 😉
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Wouldn’t add a thing to what you say here, Dale, except for thank you 🙂
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You are most welcome, Lisa. 🙂
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I think it is worth it too.
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Thank you!
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Oh the life of the urban tree. I suppose that every form of refuge has its price. Well done, Lisa.
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Very well-said, Bill. So true. Thank you.
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🙂
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“Together, but alone.” I thought of high-rise apartment buildings housing hundreds of people, but very few of them know each other. Trees in their plastic cubes.
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Linda, thank you for sharing your view of the poem, very apt comparison. I think about those places also and how the folks are cubed up.
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Much deeper than trees…but how I love trees!
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Me too. I recently learned that there are a species of redwood that grow in MI that were thought to be extinct. They found one in China and distributed the seeds globally. What’s even freakier is that a friend of mine’s neighbor has one growing in her yard AND she’s started seedlings. The big bonus is she said she will give me a seedling!!!!
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Oh that is great! I would love to see one of those Redwoods one day….they are so massive.
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During my Christmas vacation in Germany, my parents and I watched a documentary that among others included the dismal practice of clearing land in the Amazon forests by burning down huge areas of trees. While of course this wasn’t news to me, it’s truly unfortunate how short-sighted humans can be!
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Christian, there just seems to be no stopping the widescale murder of trees.
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Interesting to take the perspective of the trees. Just goes to show everyone sees something different. Sounds like you could write a Town Tree Country Tree type of story with this concept. 🙂
Happy New Year! – David
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Thanks much, David. Happy New Year to You also. 2023 will be a good year, I can feel it in my bones.
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Wild or protected? Both have advantages and disadvantages!
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I agree with you, Keith. I just wish they wouldn’t enclose them in concrete.
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Three chees for the trees ❤
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❤
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Why can’t bulldozers and trees just get along?
You make a tree’s life seem so sad, and you didn’t even get to Christmas when every year we sacrifice trees to Santa.
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Why do we treat our most beneficial earth kin so poorly? (rhetorical question, like yours was)
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The hidden life of trees sounds like s fascinating doco.
I like what you did with this one ! They sound terribly lonely
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It is a doc worth a watch. I see them like prisoners in solitary and yes they are.
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You captured this well. Nice.
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Thanks, Brit!
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Wow
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