The little tree grew into an enormous tree. It loved the hill where it had grown up, extended its roots deep into the ground, and tasted the waters of the earth. In the spring, it dropped its cones; the seeds scattered around and the little ones were born. They sprouted up around it on the hill where they all stretched their bows out and soaked in the sun and rain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then one day, the storm came. It blew hard against the tree, and the tree creaked and swayed under the strain, but its roots were deep and it refused to be moved. Rain came for days and days. It washed around the tree and loosened the soil. The water flowed through and around, slowly breaking its grip on the earth. It still stood, though it leaned to one side. Wind battered its branches, and stripped them of their needles. Then lightning cracked out of the sky with fire and fury. Millions of volts shot down from the dark clouds and struck the tree to the core, traveling down its mighty trunk, burning it from the inside out, breaking it off from its base. It fell to the ground in a boom that resounded and echoed across the green hills. The tree rolled down into the river below with a gigantic splash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The flooded waters of the river rushed against the tree, pulling it in and sweeping it along with all the mud and debris. Its branches snapped off as it smashed into the rocks and all the other detritus in the waters. It sailed along, dashed under and soaked until it could barely float, its trunk now only a battered and split log. A hundred miles passed by as the river became larger and larger until the tree washed out into the ocean current, bobbing along, cast about on the waves by every whim of the great sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The salt bleached its wood, and the bark fell off. The tree turned white and pale as the sun and water worked against it. In the years that came, it wandered, pushed about by the waves and current, finally coming to rest on a sandy beach. In time, the tides carried it high on the shore, where it now lays \u2014 a resting place for weary travelers to sit upon and admire sunsets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The little tree grew into an enormous tree. It loved the hill where it had grown up, extended its roots deep into the ground, and tasted the waters of the earth. In the spring, it dropped its cones; the seeds scattered around and the little ones were born. They sprouted up around it on the hill where they all stretched their bows out and soaked in the sun and rain. Then one day, the storm came. It blew hard against the tree, and the tree creaked and swayed under the strain, but its roots were deep and it refused to be moved. Rain came for days and days. It washed around the tree and loosened the soil. The water flowed through and around, slowly breaking its grip on the earth. It still stood, though it leaned to one side. Wind battered its branches, and stripped them of their needles. Then lightning cracked out of the sky with fire and fury. Millions of volts shot down from the dark clouds and struck the tree to the core, traveling down its mighty trunk, burning it from the inside out, breaking it off from its base. It fell to the ground in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p32u0F-Og","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":292,"url":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/?p=292","url_meta":{"origin":3116,"position":0},"title":"Afterlives: The Novel is now available!","author":"KeithBPhillips","date":"June 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Martin is a private investigator who gets involved in a mystery of galactic proportions. His second chance at life came with a great cost; he died and lost his family. Now he's been resurrected by the power of nanocells and has been hijacked into a search for the missing body\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/keithbphillips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/KindleCover-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2159,"url":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/?p=2159","url_meta":{"origin":3116,"position":1},"title":"The Dead Bones","author":"KeithBPhillips","date":"October 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\"You kill your trees and live in their dead bones.\" That\u2019s what she\u2019d said to me as I left the forest. I'd looked back at her with wet eyes and could not deny it. I couldn\u2019t tell her that she was mistaken, that I\u2019d not been part of it, because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Stories"","block_context":{"text":"Stories","link":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.keithbphillips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Tree-Fern.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.keithbphillips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Tree-Fern.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.keithbphillips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Tree-Fern.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.keithbphillips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Tree-Fern.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":838,"url":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/?p=838","url_meta":{"origin":3116,"position":2},"title":"Living in a World without Dale Grubb","author":"KeithBPhillips","date":"May 21, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I now live in a world without Dale Grubb.\u00a0 I drove down the street today and saw the back of a man walking down the sidewalk, thinking it was Dale, and then my mind told me otherwise.\u00a0 Dale passed on three years ago.\u00a0 I miss him. He visits me sometimes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1328,"url":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/?p=1328","url_meta":{"origin":3116,"position":3},"title":"We’re Not So Different","author":"KeithBPhillips","date":"December 6, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"You and I, we're not so different. You stare at me in the eyes, and feel the wonder of the skies. You wander the earth and climb the trees. And I feel you inside there looking at me. You and I, we aren't so different. You eat and sleep, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.keithbphillips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/IMG_1679.jpg?fit=1163%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.keithbphillips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/IMG_1679.jpg?fit=1163%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.keithbphillips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/IMG_1679.jpg?fit=1163%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.keithbphillips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/IMG_1679.jpg?fit=1163%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.keithbphillips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/IMG_1679.jpg?fit=1163%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1086,"url":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/?p=1086","url_meta":{"origin":3116,"position":4},"title":"The Cage","author":"KeithBPhillips","date":"February 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"There's an eagle that lives at Bonnie Falls. As I write this, I am not particularly inspired. No great urgency of greatness rests upon me. I desire to do more, though. I want more out of my life than just existence and survival. For many years I have driven two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":203,"url":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/?p=203","url_meta":{"origin":3116,"position":5},"title":"The First Men in the Moon-2010: Scifi Movie Review","author":"KeithBPhillips","date":"April 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"[rating:5\/5] The First Men in the Moon. \u00a0I was afraid that this was going to suck bad, but was pleasantly surprised. \u00a0They did a great job recreating this H.G. Wells classic. \u00a0Mark Gattis was awesome as the quirky professor, Cavor, who walks around making strange growling sounds when he is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/keithbphillips.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/MV5BMTU0MzIxMzY4Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNDAxNzYxNA%40%40._V1._SY317_CR50214317_.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3116"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3120,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3116\/revisions\/3120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithbphillips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}