The Maple and his Boy

I am often visited by people. I love people. They have such expression and animation. Young ones come to play with the winged seeds I cast to them. They love to gather them and toss them in the air to view their spiral descent. Older people come to use the shade that my leaves provide. Whether it is to dine in the out of doors, or perhaps read one of their books. I've even had people come right up to meet me, climbing my limbs! People are lovely! But it was my observation of people that led me to concern about one certain person. It was a boy. He seemed to be at an age in which many changes were coming into his life. He was nearing adulthood. He came to me one day in the mid afternoon to sit at my roots. I looked down on him, not being able to ignore his great emotion he was expressing. It was not the joy of the children playing, or the satisfaction of the ones dining or reading. It was a deep and dark emotion. His thoughts were extremely focused on one thing in his mind; yet that one thing was enormous. It grew and moved, and whenever he thought he had it figured out, it would turn on him or change its face. This left him bewildered. I am not sure on how human emotions work, but I can see how this bewilderment could lead to two dangerous ends: sorrow or anger. His eyes fixed themselves on some unknown object in the distance. I looked and saw nothing. It was if he was trying to force his mind to focus on this monster in his mind, which made his body entirely focused on nothing in this world. He was still and motionless. I could think of no way to help him. I watched his motionless face in bewilderment, wondering whether it would turn to sorrow or anger. Slowly it looked like it would be the former. I find sorrow no less dangerous than anger, and I still could find no way to help him. It was in this moment of my helplessness and his turning to sorrow that I heard it, a rumble in the distance. A storm was coming. He did not move. A rumble again, and still it did not phase him. I knew that he must wake from this trance he had put himself in soon, or the storm would be on him. I shook my leaves to warn him of his coming, but it did not help. The sky grew darker and darker as the minutes passed, but he did not see it. All his body was focus and fixed in the direction of the storm, and all his sensed knew of its coming, but he was blind to all of that. The rain began to fall. I clumsily tried to catch it with my leaves, but when each leaf had held all it could, it would drop all the rain at once, making the matter worse. I looked down at him, nearly in panic, the thunder and lightning from the heavens showed itself in full force right in front of us. I was amazed and thrown back at the sight, and looked down at my young friend. He had not jumped or stirred at the crash of the thunder or spectacle of the lightning, yet something started to turn in his face. The monster that was in his mind seemed to be getting smaller. He turned his eyes from his mind to the storm and finally figured it out. There were much larger things in life than what was on his mind. It was only his focus on it that made it grow so. His sorrow and bewilderment began to vanish, as he got up to walk home. He did not have all of his answers yet, but he did not need them immediately anymore. I watched him as he walked away, with one thought on my mind....
"Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal"