A Windless Day
(Subheading: A Cloud Who Loved a Tree)
I am a cloud.
I always drift wherever the wind takes me.
Day after day, I wander the sky, believing I am free.
No one could hold me, and I could be anywhere.
Then one day,
the wind stopped, and I came to a brief halt.
It was a vast, empty field.
And in it, a single tree was growing.
To be honest, it wasn’t even pretty.
Not very big, and from afar, it looked like just any other tree.
But strangely, I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
As I kept watching,
I saw that the tree stood alone,
offering rest to passing birds,
and shade to the little bugs beneath its roots.
“How foolish,” I thought.
Giving itself away like that,
unable to even move.
But then again, something felt different.
I kept wondering about that tree.
I wanted to get closer.
So I tried to move toward it—
and in that moment, I realized something.
I had never moved on my own.
I had always needed the wind.
The realization hurt more than I expected.
I had believed I was free, but in truth,
I had never gone anywhere by my own will.
My chest tightened, emotions overflowed,
and eventually, I cried.
That tear became rain,
and it fell down to the tree.
Then,
the tree quietly said,
“Thank you for coming down to me.”
Those words sank deep into my heart.
Since that day, I often stayed nearby.
Falling as rain, rising again as dew,
hanging on its leaves under the sunlight.
The tree grew.
Its leaves multiplied, branches spread wider,
its shade deepened.
Only then did I finally understand.
The tree hadn’t been standing still.
It was slowly,
very slowly, growing upward.
I had drifted all my life, thinking I was free,
but maybe,
I just hadn’t understood the one who stayed in place and grew in silence.
We were simply moving in different ways.
Some days, the wind took me away again.
But if the wind ever stops once more,
I know.
I will return to that tree.
And once again, I will cry for them.
With all my rain,
and all my love.