Your ending fascinates me. The tree premise works beautifully and each tree leaves you with an aching little piece of truth. Your Sheppard tree also shows his hidden side, yet I keep returning again and again to the last two sentences. I can't decide how to read them, if Rodney was simply too late and the warm body that melted against him was instead him meeting sheppard, to be the tree that held up and badgered the twisted, hidden one into getting enough sunlight, or if he traded his spot for his John, the one. I love not knowing, I love how every second I'm sure I do know. Some how the wind, and the nettles and rooted to the spot just resonate. Gorgeous piece.