The Leaves, The Compost

Far above the earth, a great tree arched over a mountaintop.
In a raging maelstrom of rain and light, the tree was riven. In a blast of green leaves and fire, it fell in twain.
Its broken wood was chewed by rats and grew wormy.
Great mushrooms sprouted from its broken heart, and ants chewed its leaves.
Woodpeckers tolled a staccato dirge on its greying bark, and bears stomped its roots into the mud.
As the flaking shroud of the great, fallen tree was pulverized and smashed into the earth, it began to compost.
Fermenting and darkening, it became the richest of soils upon the mountain.
And upon those loamy remnants of the great tree, the seed of a new tree alighted -- and grew great and tall.
Thus, from compost arises soil -- from decay of the old, will arise the new.

November 1, 2010, excerpt from The Parables of Reason © 2007-2014 (Chapter 1, "Reality's Acceptance"), by Frank H. Burton, Executive Director, The Circle of Reason

Dedicated to Orbital Sciences Corporation's "SS Deke Slayton" Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo ship, and Planetary Resources Corporation's Arkyd-3 asteroid mining explorer, destroyed 6 seconds after launch from Wallops Island, Virginia. Space entrepreneurism is a heavenly road, but no less a hard one.