Tree of Souls

It stood like a sentinel at the world’s bleak last shore, its gnarled branches clawing at a churning grey November sky, above a thin and narrowing yellow band of waning light auguring the coming night. Rattling seed pods faintly clicked— (playing hollow, spectral tunes) like a wind-chime built for wraiths. Brittle voices rose and fell in the cold breath of the sea, not quite a song, nor quite unknown— a whispered hush of lives unsown. It seemed no tree at all that day, but something older, something whole— a guardian at the end of time, the ancient, waiting Tree of Souls. Its roots ran deep through rock and soil, its shadow stretched beyond the known, a threshold carved in bark and bone. And still they wait beyond our sight, in silent chambers yet unborn, their moments measured out in stars, their names like whispers on the storm. The tree will stand as ages fall, its branches cradling birth and death, a constant hush of waiting breath.