On the Decomposition of a tree

Like an enraptured audience, the sunflower seedlings face the setting sun. Hidden in the shadows, a large, newly fallen, dead tree rests in the arms of his living neighbors. Their intertwining emerald branches hold his aged trunk so that it need not rest in the mud, but perhaps their embrace is delaying his ability to decompose; his required contribution to the forest’s growth. His time will come regardless. Perhaps suspended above the earth, he will be more exposed to the elements and so disintegrate differently. Or, conceivably, he could remain in this indeterminate state until the day his captors fall too.  Regardless of whether this tree is slowly eroded away by the atmosphere or consumed by worms, death is already complete before either process can begin. The process of decomposition is a continual rebirth.