small, is the young forest,
its scope short and underdeveloped,
in time,
leaves grow
and extend  their knowledge.
mighty and vast they may be,
dominating the sky
with the yells of their rife notions.
they age
and come to see that maybe
life is not so jubilant
and the air not so clean
but still
fine.
and so they should,
such is the course.
the trees of the wood settle
into routine
until
they pass rings worth counting,
and die with the pass of peaceful seasons.
yet.
sometimes they die,
not from the cut of foreign blade,
but from their own disease
which feasts
and turns
the trees
black.
it creeps
like the evening’s growing shadows,
and spreads from deep within
to touch all,
and flavors the reaching branches with impurity
until
every part is at a glance, pristine,
but inside harbors only rot