Where's the wonder?

I feel the most wonder when I think of the silent, frigid reaches of northern Finland, pinpointing one old spruce tree in my mind's eye.  I think of it living there amidst its fellows, never hearing a human voice in all its years, feeling the chill rain on its branches in summer, the heavy snows in winter, its roots creeping ever deeper into the soil.  It stands mute and swaying almost imperceptibly, under the silent swerving arcs of the aurora borealis. Such sights it has seen, and such peace it has felt, never moving from the place where it nestled once as a seed.

I feel the most wonder when I lay on the powdery white beaches of western Michigan.  Kids come and go with their plastic inner tubes, hot girls gather new radicals and tans there on the strand, people complain and throw their shit down and pick it up again endlessly, thinking only of themselves and their vacation.  But the "eyes" of the trees are ever fixed upon the same vista.  They've felt the same warm, western wind for ages.  The sand rolls upon the beach to be buried and sifted among the waves again, over and over.  The hills stand, thumping for miles with each heartbeat wave, the bedrock reverberates.  The ferns are tossed in storm and glaze in heat and wither and die and are covered with snow, and do it all again, in the same place.

Humanity, ugh.  Shitting and cursing and arguing and taking away the rights of other suffering humans.  Standing in the middle of sidewalks and staring at nothing when other people have places to go.  Judging me, judging you.  Destroying.  Fucking ridiculous.