Deep in the dark and the cool brown earth,
a little seed lay small and round.
It had no leaves, it had no flowers,
it made no light, it made no sound.
All around it the soil was dark, and quiet, and still. The little seed could not see the sky. It did not even know there was a sky. But deep inside its tiny shell, the little seed had a great big dream.
"One day," dreamed the seed, "I will not be small. I will stretch and I will climb. I will push up through the heavy dark and find out what is up above. I will grow so tall, so green, so wide, that the birds will come and sit in me, and the children will rest in my shade."
It seemed impossible. The seed was so little, and the earth was so deep. But the dream was warm, and the dream was bright, and the seed held on to it tight.
Then the spring rains came and softened the soil, and something stirred in the little seed. It cracked its shell. It sent down a root, thin as a thread, reaching for water. And it sent up a shoot, pale and brave, reaching for a sky it had never seen.
Up, and up, and up it pushed, through the dark and the damp and the crumbling earth — until one bright morning, it broke through the surface into the light.
Oh, the sky! It was wider than any dream, and bluer than the seed had dared to hope. The sun poured down warm and gold. The wind came by and said hello. And the little shoot, that once had been a seed, unfurled its very first green leaf and drank in the wide bright world.
Growing is slow, and growing is hard. The little shoot did not become a tree in a day, or a week, or a year. It grew a leaf, and then another. It thickened its stem, slow and patient. It learned to bend in the wind without breaking, and to stand quiet through the cold. Each season asked it to be a little braver, a little stronger — and each season, the small brave plant said yes, and grew.
The seasons turned, and turned again,
through sun and snow and wind and rain,
and the little seed that dared to dream
grew tall and strong and broad and green.
Now the birds come and sit in its branches, just as it dreamed they would. The children rest in its cool green shade. And sometimes, when the wind moves softly through its leaves, the great old tree remembers the small round seed it used to be — and how the biggest things of all begin with one brave little dream, deep down in the dark.