Episode #33: 2 Christopher - Chapter 12 - Trees

Jan,15 2026

<-#32: 2 Christopher - Chapter 11 - Rolling Weed#34: 2 Christopher - Chapter 13 - The agent ->

On planting what will not be eaten, and shade given to strangers

12:1

After the weeds were managed,

Christopher spoke of trees.

12:2

This puzzled many.

12:3

For trees do not feed the hungry quickly.

12:4

He said,

"We will plant them anyway."

12:5

They asked,

"Where?"

12:6

He answered,

"Where the wind enters first."

12:7

He chose rows along the edges,

near the lanes,

and beside the water's last reach.

12:8

He said,

"Cottonwood and elm.

Osage orange where thorns are needed."

12:9

"Plant them close enough

to argue with the wind."

12:10

A man said,

"I will never see them tall."

12:11

Christopher replied,

"Then they are not for you."

12:12

Another asked,

"What good is shade

if crops still fail?"

12:13

He answered,

"Shade keeps soil from fleeing."

12:14

"And roots teach water

how to stay."

12:15

They planted in silence.

12:16

Children carried saplings

no higher than their knees.

12:17

Christopher worked beside them,

slower now,

but careful.

12:18

That night,

I asked him,

"Why trees now?"

12:19

He said,

"Because hunger makes men desperate,

and desperate men forget the future."

12:20

He added,

"Trees remind us

that not all obedience

is immediate."

12:21

The next summer was harsher.

12:22

But a decade later, where the trees stood,

the dust fell before reaching our fields.

12:23

And the wind arrived tired.

12:24

I understood then

that Christopher did not fight the land.

12:25

He sided with it.

<-#32: 2 Christopher - Chapter 11 - Rolling Weed#34: 2 Christopher - Chapter 13 - The agent ->