The Selfless Sycamore

We can serve as a mirror, reflecting to others their inner beauty

“I weep for Narcissus because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected” (from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho)

Dusk now fallen the giant sycamore stands abandoned by the light While unable to still see his reflection in the river on whose bank he grew he remained content and constant in his identity his strength, might, broad leaves, round fruit and flowers that drip from branched splendor but even more so his compassion sheltering summer lovers providing shade for sun worn travelers keeping the council of those who whispered secrets beneath his branches his bark cushioning playful children when they fell no scraped knees that ever needed kissing and intertwining, his roots held soil a stabilizing force so not to wash away from river’s tumbled efforts These and more things he knew within Not from self congratulations Or entitled sense of self supremacy But only through reflection though not his own While those who cared only for their own self importance Thinking he did as well Assuming he towered over the river Enamored of seeing his greatness But knowledge of who he was Came not from within himself Not from reflection born of what he made appear Because of what he wanted to think himself Within his own mind But from the true reflection given him as a gift By the water way who had watched As he’d given to all around him Without him even being aware

True reflection comes not from a mirror That is dependent on us alone It comes from what we give to others Which we see reflected in their eyes

For whatever reason for some time now, I’ve found myself unable to read. I’m not sure why, given that until a few years ago, you’d never catch me without a book in my hand or at least my possession no matter where I went. But something happened along the way, and the one thing that once gave me the greatest joy oddly became something I could no longer tolerate. It’s odd how trauma affects each of us differently.

Tonight, I finally picked up a book again. It’s one I’ve had for a while, but though I kept reading the first page over and over again every so often, I couldn’t seem to gather the desire or interest to go further. So, tonight I tried again. The book was The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho.

I was drawn to that one after I read an article about how the author who’d been writing a children’s book with Kobe Bryant, immediately deleted the draft upon hearing of Bryant’s death. (Bryant had evidently been a huge fan of Coelho, in particular, of his book The Alchemist.)

As this seemed a bit odd to me, it stuck in my mind over the last 48 hours or so. I can’t say I’ve made sense of the decision, nor the rather unusual choice to share both the existence of the draft as well as his destroying it through social media, setting off a flurry of responses begging him not to do it. But whatever the reason, the name of the author and book remained in my head, leading me to pick it up tonight.

The prologue tells the story of Narcissus, who fell in love with his reflection in a pool of water and fell in and drowned. But the story continues, telling of the pool who when questioned about Narcissus, said he wept for Narcissus because each time he knelt by the water’s banks, the water could see his own beauty reflected in Narcissus’s eyes.

That got me thinking. This can, of course, be interpreted in many ways. But I like to think that it is saying perhaps don’t judge others who may seem to be self-absorbed as being narcissistic. They may be more concerned with your beauty than their own. From a more figurative standpoint, it seems to me that if someone is consumed by thoughts of themselves, then their eyes won’t reflect anything external to them. If they do so, then it suggests they can’t be only concerned with themselves to the exclusion of everyone else.

What I took away from all this was that we have the capacity to reflect to others all that they mean to us and the beauty within them that they fail to see if we just make a point of looking outside ourselves. In an era that seems best represented by the “selfie,” I think we need to start turning the lens around to focus on others.

Natalie Frank (Taye Carrol) has had her poetry featured in several anthologies including Untimely Frost. Her fiction has been published in Haunted Waters Press, Weirdbook Magazine, Siren’s Call Publications, Lycan Valley Press and Zero Fiction among others. She holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. Her collection of poetry, Disguised I Breathe, In Love I Hold, can be found on Amazon under her pen name, Taye Carrol.

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You can find links to all of the articles, stories, fiction and poetry I publish on Medium here. Thanks for reading!