There sits an old tree resting near the shores, don’t mind what body of water, just know it holds the secrets of many, and those spuming tides give way to whispers of its past, spoken in a language the minds of man could never understand so to keep those graces hidden. The water cherishes all things, its betiding breath shuttering of love, spinning tales of tragedy, a coffer whose tidings shall never be emptied nor shared. Children splash and play, men and women walk the sleeched shores, and it is there that time seems lost in the lapping of the sea.

Of the tree, autumn has claimed the leaves, painted them in its likeness, a peculiar tinge of death trying to claim its homage. The green grass has yet turned and the leaves who have withered drop like falling rain and flutter down with the grace of ballerinas in their ethereal movement. There, just before this tree, sits an old bench, and on it, the carvings of man. Like the water, the wood whose roots have driven deep through toiled dirt and sediment and bone displays its secrets, only a brief visage of them. It is a place of gathering, young men and women in the heat of love, couples who have found joy amongst each other’s presence taking but a moment of rest, lovers who have marked this place with pen and knife, even those who have sought in their grievous weeping a breath of life in the world around them. Many of the same visitors stop by, often the old whose skin has wrinkled and hair marked with the gray-touch of time. They sit, breathe, let the treespeak take them.

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This place is a place of keeping, and where the water meets the shore, it has given way to new life.