Poplar was concentrating very hard, focusing all of her energy on one goal; not putting down roots. The bright spring day made it all the harder, the season of growth and seeds was testing her resolve. She wanted nothing more than to relax, let her hair grow leafy, take her feet out of the confining shoes she trapped them in, place them very firmly on the grass, and grow down and down into the dirt, seeking water and stability. Taking a deep breath from the center of her solar plexus, she walked off the grass and out of the park, ignoring the laughing children on the jungle gym.

She and her brother had thought their parents were just burned out hippies, naming them after trees. But now Oak spent all his time on the edge of the city with birds building nests on his head. The last time she went to see him a squirrel was living in his trunk and he’d barely been able to rouse himself to talk to her. As for their parents, well, trees are very vulnerable; to fungus, to a chainsaw, even a storm. It’s amazing how hard it is to protect a tree. So, as much as she’d like to take a leafy vacation, she knew that it was, in fact, a leafy trap. Roots, once put down, are hard to pull up.

Walking on concrete was a much better choice really, even if the fumes of it in the sun made her eyes water. She plodded along, already depressed, into the hardware store on her way home. Spring brought out the gardening centers and no one would think anything of it if she picked up a couple bags of topsoil, maybe some fertilizer too, it had been a rough day after all, she deserved it. She bought everything as if she were going to the furtive man in the back alley with the trench coat full of hidden pockets and rushed home, despite the weight in the bags that hung off her arms.

In her tiny apartment in the soaring heights of the building she was completely divorced from the earth but not from the need for it, the desire to stretch her roots into it. She shuddered at the strength of her urges and ran to get her flower pot, not for the first time she thought about just throwing it out the window. Shaking with need she placed it carefully, reverentially by the window and filled it with soil and a small amount of fertilizer. Groaning she unlaced her shoes and threw them across the apartment and stepped into the pot, wiggled her toes into the dirt, and pushed the soil over her feet.

Looking up Poplar caught sight of her reflection in her mirror; red faced girl ankle deep in soil and muck, breathing deeply, almost panting, how pathetic. Filled with revulsion she thrust the flower pot away from herself, falling down in the process, spilled the soil all over. With a cry she thrust her feet back into her shoes, wanting to run, to get away. Down the steps to the cement sidewalk, staying off the grass, she blindly ran away from her need and shame, away from herself. Gasping for breath she leaned against a building, trying to decide what to do, she finally noticed that she was surrounded by faceless skyscrapers reflecting the sun down at her. That was it, she just hadn’t been able to get far enough away from the earth that called to her. Poplar tried to look calm as she entered the building and started climbing the stairs, blind to the stitch in her side, the stares from the workers, everything except a driving desire to get to the top of the building.

There were no more workers, the floors seemed to be abandoned and the flickering fluorescent lights and dim surroundings suited Poplar’s mood as she punished herself by climbing until she reached the door at the very top. Sobbing quietly she pushed past it, too numb to wonder why it was unlocked, to come face to face with an unlikely, glittering pond with blue gill jumping in the sun. In a daze she walked further in and was soon lost in a maze of bushy hedges set into a firmly geometric pattern. The more she tried to find her way back to the door, the more lost she became until, quite suddenly, she found herself on the other side of the maze, knee deep in violently blooming flowers. Poplar was a little more at ease since she could see over the blooms and she walked, gazing at them, naming them quietly in her head. Here were the Holland tulips, the little anemones, clumps of crocus and snowbells moving slowly in the breeze, rows and circles of gladiolas waving at her as she pressed forward, eager to see the other mysteries of this garden. She stepped by a field of poppies and into an open spring meadow. Tentatively she put out her hands, pulling them back several times before she managed to touch the field, falling into it and reveling in the feel of the sun on her limbs and the grass at her back. Pulling the tie out of her hair Poplar relaxed and let her head begin to leaf and branch, for the first time in weeks she was happy, this almost felt like home.

A cloud passed over the sun and the spell of the meadow was broken. As good as it felt, as comfortable as she was, it could not be. She would not let it happen, this could not be her. Sadly, she picked herself up, concentrated on her leafy hair, and tied it back to her head as she walked towards the exit. She allowed herself to look neither left nor right only straight ahead as she left this strange paradise, slumping down the stairs and out the door back to her claustrophobic apartment. Back to her flower pot full of soil and to real life, life where people were not trees and neither was she. With a sigh she cleaned up the mess and debris still sitting in the living room and fell onto her bed curling into a defeated sleep which only brought dreams of a verdant, sunlit longing.

The next day found her leaning against her brother as squirrels danced on his branches, chasing each other higher and higher as she poured out the last two days in a torrent. She stopped and pressed her cheek against his bark. Oak was always so sure of himself. Even when his decisions led him to disaster, he just laughed and remarked on what a learning experience this was. Poplar wished Oak would talk, respond, just let her know he’d heard her, that he was still there. Oak was always more comfortable as a tree and over time he had just stopped turning back, even for her. Now he wasn’t even responding to her visits, the pain and abandonment gnawed at her, bringing her to tears again. Ten, thirty, countless drops fell on Oak’s roots before she heard his whispered voice, “Poppy, don’t cry. Be you. Love.” And as quickly as he was gone again, back inside himself. It was all well and good for him to say but she couldn’t let go and wind up like Oak, like their poor parents. She had to hold on, be strong; eventually it would get easier, right?

Days went by as Poplar struggled and concentrated, rarely allowing herself down to ground level or onto open earth even to visit Oak. Days turned to weeks which faded into months as she focused, not allowing herself to so much as touch a clump of dirt. Poplar began to pale as she cut herself off from sunlight for days, sometimes even weeks at a time, sure that it was the key to kicking this tree thing once and for all. She lay on the floor of her darkened apartment, spread eagle, fighting a wave of dizziness, she had not eaten for a week, when she again shut herself away from the sun. Poplar got up and as she did something clicked, realization blinded her as much as the sun when she tore the coverings from her window. She straightened up the apartment, looked around, seeing how impersonal and sterile it was, how after living there for years it still was not home. Poplar exited the apartment leaving her key in the door and began a very long walk, made harder by her weakened, hungered state and vague memories of the route, the last time she had just been running, not really paying attention to where her feet took her. But after wandering through what felt like half of the city, she found it.

Poplar stared up at the skyscraper thinking about the garden at the top, a miniature Eden that looked out over the city. In a daze of need she walked through the ornate doorway and began to climb the stairs. Up and up past offices and workers, up and up through the unused places and floors full of filing cabinets, up and up to the 88th floor where she unlocked the last door and climbed the last flight. She walked by the edge of the unlikely pond with the jumping trout, past the hedge maze that would not have been out of place at Versailles, through the flowerbeds full of brilliant, jewel tones to the spring meadow where she sighed and kicked off her shoes. She settled her feet into the grass and shook the confining pins out of her hair to let the tender leaves and branches unfurl. As her arms lengthened and her fingers grew bark she couldn’t help but smile. The smile grew and grew as her roots penetrated slowly through the soft almost sensuous soil, supporting her as she’d never let it before. As she let herself split into two trunks she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there was no one else she would rather be than slowly turning into a tree.