ones not uniform

The forest was broad and wide, a nearly uniform collection of pines swaying in wind and breeze. Stretching, it seemed, from sea to shining sea, the forest covered fertile and sandy ground, rocky shores and freezing wastes alike.

Here and there stood clumps and clusters of trees unlike the others, however, ones not uniform, ones with different types of bark and shapes of leaf or seed. Ones that responded differently to different types of weather. Ones that had different ideas about whether or not the land should be covered with one kind of tree, mostly. Ones that saw each tree in the forest as an individual unto itself, not as a member of a distinctive or pre-ordained race.

Outwardly, the pines tolerated those not uniform. Inwardly, the pines secretly hoped that soon - as soon as possible, in fact - the different trees would die off and let a gently swaying pine grow where they’d once stood.

Then came gnawing beetles, pine-tree-eating insects that tore through those uniform stands what stretched from sea to shining sea, eating away at their trunks, devouring their crowns, infesting their roots, causing much havoc and destruction. Afterward, the few pine trees left standing were ones surrounded by or living next to those trees of different types, whose leaves and seeds weren’t uniform. ‘Now we know the importance of diversity,’ the pines agreed, their voices soft as verdant needles falling. ‘Let us all live densely together, we trees of different types, now and forever more, until the starlight fails.’

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan