The Great Yellow Oak

         She walked the path toward it every day; the Great Yellow Oak. With Its massive arms yawning upward, feathered in striated golden leaves overlapping against the framework of sky above. Any color sky suited those leaves-crystal blue, a nice sullen gray, or that peculiar shade of white that appeared when the sky just couldn’t decide what else to do with itself. This tree was easy to flatter, yet needed no flattery. Perhaps it was the tree itself that flattered the world around it.  It was surrounded by its own dynasty, enthroned in a glade that twinkled when the sun and wind mingled just right in the boughs overhead. Somehow, she felt that tree could make them just right if it so chose. This tree…….it just felt like…more. It had a presence, a feeling, a power that emanated from it in tingling, nerve-stimulating waves that drew her back daily, occupying her mind far more than an ordinary tree should. But this wasn’t an ordinary tree. Hadn’t it, after all, interacted with her in some indefinable way? Hadn’t it expressed disappointment with her? Exchanged gifts with her? Shown not one, but multiple shifting faces-none more expressive than that feeling…. But…this was so silly.....

         Until recently she really never noticed trees much. Certainly, she couldn’t tell them apart. She was a child of fauna, not flora. Sure-trees were a natural beauty, but it was only recently that she had begun to put names to them. Google was a wonderful thing. She was, after all, a girl of many questions. A girl of scientific mind. A rational, critical, analyzing girl. Girl was how she still saw herself, after all, and therefore-girl she still was. This wasn’t the first tree that drew her attention. There had been a wise and watchful silver maple, a Master Ash, and then a growing familiarity with the neighborhood trees in general. The pregnant ladies, the mad watchers, the lone-cone spruce… But that oak... That powerful, majestic, ancient deity of a tree…...it drew more than her attention. It drew her admiration. It drew her reverence. It drew her.