Dreams begin to die when we start looking down instead of up.
I’ve walked this forest for all my life. I grew up with these sycamores and redwoods, playing in the nurturing shade of their canopies. I made friends with all manner of beasts, being raised like one of their own. We would play in the glittering light that shone down through the thick foliage of our caretakers.
Individual rays would become spotlights on each of us giving rise to all sorts of character creations in a play we would craft from dawn’s curtain rise to dusk’s curtain call. At night the stars would peek through; a nightlight and mother’s eye to watch over us sleeping. Each new day was an exciting foray into the unknown. Where dreams were grasped and realized, if only for a moment, before being whisked away into the wind.
One day silence arose to greet me with dawn’s opening light. My neighbors and family had disappeared from sight. The trees that gave shape and protection to these great works groaned and shriveled, dying from blight. I called and bellowed in fear and fright. There was no response to thwart this new plight. Great towers bloomed with cold delight. Blotting out the sun and stars; leaving in their wake a false and fleeting light. The great expanse of forest was overrun with cold concrete pressed oh so tight.
Man’s gift, as it was thought, was that he was of the stronger. In this his great folly was born for man could be no wronger. The dirt and grime of these machinations is the blood of dying dreams from those who roam here no longer.