The Tree

Š 1994 Robert Crimmins, 5012 Killens Pond Rd., Felton DE 19943, 302-284-8025 THE TREE A November wind, the first cold breeze of the year, chilled him as sorrow settled in his heart. Here, at the pond's edge a man at mid life was considering his lost dreams. One after another they had been forgotten or exchanged for other goals which dissolved, now, he wondered why.

Walks in the woods were daily rituals. Movement had taken the place of growth. Since his wife left, the forest and the pond were more home to him than the house that he built for them at the edge of the woods. Her words, spoken fifteen years before, still tore at his heart. There's no harshness in the voice of the wind through the leaves. The mirrors and windows in their home hold only shadows. Light reflected off the surface of the water doesn't illuminate his weakness.

He leaves his empty home often for the forest. The cool, sweet air, the forest's breath, soothes him. He draws it deeply and slowly through his nose and slightly parted lips. With eyes closed and the wind washing over him he can forget about himself. For a time he can join with the rich sea of life around him. Soon, the need to move returns.

After a few steps he stops. The moment of peace was so brief that it served only to remind him that he has no peace. A tree is before him. Its girth is twice his and it rises a hundred feet. Laying his hands on it he feels the rough bark. He is a large man and physically powerful but the tree makes him feel very small. Looking straight up he studies the patterns of the branches. Many of the leaves have fallen, those that remain are bright yellow. The late afternoon sun reveals the intensely rich fall colors of the forest canopy. To another, they would appear as pedals or wings of light floating on the cold wind.

He senses the life within this thing, anchored in the Earth and rising above it. He senses the flow of fluid, of life, just beneath the bark and half an inch from his palms. Sliding his hands slowly on the rough surface he feels its life.

Nothing has comforted him - no warm caress, not a kiss, not a phrase, for many years. He has kept to himself and now, suddenly, the loneliness has struck him like waking in prison.

He's held his despair too well and for too long. A sob grips him but his anguish is so sudden and sharp that it seizes in his chest. He chokes on it. A deep groan, the wail of a strong man overcome, escapes. Tears would have brought relief, another brief rest, but he is shamed by the sound of his whimper so the tears are held. Wrapping his arms around the tree he holds it as if it were his mother. The thought is another blow. Wincing and gnashing his teeth, he pushes his cheek into the bark making his skin flow like putty into it's recesses.

Now the tears do come. Heavy drops flow down his cheeks and onto to bark.

The pain is good so he squeezes harder. While pouring out his sorrow he wonders has anyone ever held a tree. Has despair ever been so deep in any heart that this has happened before. Did the Druids, who worshiped the giants of the forest, commune in such a way or did a man cast out and alone in some cold pre-history seek solace so empty.

It might be from his own exertion but there is warmth. The source doesn't matter. Holding more tightly, he prays to this tree, and to God for help.

"Dear God, let it end!"

Help came.

His cheeks, pressed to the tree became thin liquid that mixed with his tears. Then, as he prayed for release, his arms and the rest of his body flowed through the fibers of his clothes and into the tree, through its pours and into the liquid that coursed beneath the bark. Something was helping him, giving him his wish in a manner that he didn't understand or resist.

His clothes fell in a heap at the base of the tree. He could see them from the tree top. At the same time, he could see the hills in the distance, the pond and the dirt around his roots. His roots!

There was no fear. He understood what had happened and he was grateful. It was impossible to

know how, but he did know what happened and he knew why. He knew also, that it had happened to others.

Human despair, in earlier times, was much, much worse. When hunger was common and only the strong survived and men feared the world and its mysteries, sorrow was wide spread and deep. When men enslaved and tortured their enemies, and mercy was a weakness, the forest took its suffering children to its bosom. Few were drawn to the base of the trees and fewer held close a love so weak, but it had happened before. It was a defense, a means of survival and escape that no man would ever discover, except first hand.

His pain was gone. His loneliness and lost dreams were now only memories of a previous life.

The world around him was sensed in new ways. He had vision that allowed him to see the approaching gusts, sunlight, the forest canopy and floor, the sky, and the Earth around his roots all at the same time. He could hear. He was sensitive to the cold but not chilled.

Locked in a tree and bound to the soil wasn't frightening. He was at peace and for the first time since childhood he relaxed. His body of dead and living wood was perfectly formed to carry its mass.

The seemingly random turns of the limbs followed lines of force and gravity that humans will never know - lines that the tree feels and conforms to. His support is perfect for his space and the slope, the wind, and the tides He was aware of the life around him. Within the radius of his roots and as high as his upper branches the awareness was complete. Every plant, insect and animal were known to him. Many were thriving. Many dying. Some were in the throes of ecstacy and the discovery of life. Birds in flight glowed with joy and squirrels preparing for the winter were satisfied. Others were in misery as they tore at each other or struggled in webs. He felt them all. He was aware too, in a less intimate way, of the life beyond his sphere. All the other trees, beetles, lichens, fish, worms, molds and birds were part of each other and eternity.

Release from human torment was birth. Life was now nothing more than life. Goals and love and the other inventions that the species of man has contrived to make his existence more important were gone. None of it mattered as he absorbed the sunlight and the water and swayed gently with the wind.

The sun set. With darkness, the life within his sphere shifted. The nocturnal arose to feed on each other. The others settled down to rest. Some dreamed.

The Moon pulled at him.

An owl came from across the pond to a perch on his highest branch. As it alighted, the tree felt the grip of its talons and its weight. How strong and agile it is to carry that mass with precision to surprised prey that die before they know why, or live, in terror, briefly. The owl calls, first to the Moon.

Then an answer comes from another of his kind in a distant tree. The Moon and all else fade from the owl's mind as he pictures his brother, and calls again. The hoot carries through the quiet night.

Thousands stop, and listen, then drift with the sound.

Through the night, sounds fade and return. Wind moves the tree. Between gusts, the silence is deep and pleasing. All night, the movements and sounds stir and then calm his soul. He succumbs to a trance, a kind of sleep until first light changes it all.

The departure of the owls and others that roam the stillness of the night is lost in the arrival of the multitudes. With day come the birds by the hundreds darting through his branches and the squirrels and centipedes, mice and snakes, insects beyond number that crawl on his surface and on the ground and in the dirt. Spiders dangle and wait. And the plants all drink the daylight. They buzz with living energy.

Life is churning all about. It swims and drinks and turns the soil to find fresh fuel. It changes light into wood and straw and nourishment. It feeds off of everything, especially itself. The bounty is vast.

The tree watches it all. It feels the life of the others in its sphere. He feels their life more acutely than his own leaves. But they don't feel him. To the bird, whose heart races, he is frozen. To the insects he is a planet. To none is he alive. His branches, trunk, leaves and roots sustain and shelter so many, and

none know. His spirit shapes them. All that live within or pass through his sphere are affected by it but they don't know. Their senses suit their rapid movement. Their perception is frantic. His is serene and seasoned. Peace and the power to nurture is the reward of an ancient life. It is the fruit of patience and stillness and longevity.

When yesterday's sun rose he was one of the other creatures. A man that suffered. He remembers and he is glad. The new life is fine.

The fox pup in the den at his base is alone. His mother is seeking food and he fears the solitude.

She'll return and he will rejoice but now he's afraid and lonely. A litter of one, he is facing his first morning without her. The man's pain was like the pup's. When his mother returns, his small friend, will be delivered from the void.

The rising sun warms him and the others. Early November noon is warm when the wind is light, and cool in a gust. The tree welcomes the shifts of sensation.

As the days and nights pass and winter approaches the changes within him, and around him, progress.

When the rain is hard the animals keep to their warm and dry burrows. The social among them nestle with each other in perfect happiness. Some of the others merely endure the cold rain, wet and shivering. If their nests are flawed they pay an awful price for their poor workmanship. If they survive, they learn. There is preparation and change as winter comes on. His physical efforts decline but his awareness doesn't.

His mind and body are only loosely joined. He may be more aware of the others than himself.

He has two pasts. The man's and the tree's, and he remembers both. He remembers that as a sapling he was apart from the others and absorbed with himself. Until his roots were strong and he reached a height that placed him in the midday sun, he couldn't listen to the tiny scraping of the beetles and the sobs of the chicks left too long and being devoured. The calls and cries and purrs and rustlings were yet to be heard. Many years of listening came before any understanding of the sounds. The man could not have heard.

Many, many years, of slow growth brought the awareness, thousands of generations for some species. With time came everything for the tree. Now, each day was a climax, a dream fulfilled.

The man now inside doesn't share the sphere with the tree. He doesn't share the life. It is his and his only. If another spirit is there with him he is not aware of it. He is the tree.

As the tree's spot on the Earth continues to tilt away from the sun, the days become shorter and colder. His domain above the frost line is still. Below it the water still flows and many are in the deep sleep of hibernation. When the wind blows, dead leaves slide and tumble across the forest floor, rustling and breaking as they skitter about. The stiff, bare limbs creek and moan in protest of the wind's rude stirrings.

Snow transforms the forrest. The blanket holds the dead leaves and absorbs the sounds. Now the wind is a cold, shrill whistle and when the air is still all are loathe to spoil the silence. Movements are amplified and the predators are listening.

The hunters break the pall to stir the others. The owl's shriek reverberates through the frozen landscape for miles. He listens and feels the air for signs of the fear that will feed him. If a creature with warm blood panics the owl knows and follows, but he must stop to narrow his search so he alights, waits, and splits the air again with a scream. All flinch but only one jumps, the one on the ground near the tree, the one who knows he is being stalked. The owl hears, and drops from his perch. Soon he will see his prey. He will focus of the spot moving on the white snow. He'll deliver death to the creature that is inviting it with its fear.

He skillfully cuts the air as he glides, so his feathers won't rustle. He can listen for the movements of his meal while in flight, if he is close. When he senses that it is near he beats his wings for his prey to hear. The hapless creature is just below and it does hear. Now it scurries in a blind panic.

The tree knows the hunt is over. The owl need only kill and feed. Tucking his wings to his side, he drops

to the surface. The snow permits the use of a favored technique. Instead of swooping to his prey and plucking it from the ground he drops on it and drives it into the snow while crushing it with his talons.

The tree feels the terror and pain and the triumph at the same time. Minute's later he feels the bird's satisfaction as he returns to flight. Calm returns.

Winter is still and slow. As the season deepens the cold penetrates the tree. Gradually, his processes slow. Finally he joins the others in slumber. The oceans of air that circulate around the globe wash over and around winter while the tree sleeps. When the noon sun is high enough the atmosphere moves the cold dense air, across the surface of the Earth.

When the first sea wave of spring kisses the tree, he awakens. Before he knows what has stirred him the fresh wave recedes and the cold settles around him again. Each day brings more warm air.

The warmer air has loosened the soil. He draws through his roots water and minerals to feed new growth. Hundreds of gallons of the thin mixture surge through him each day for he is a large tree.

Leaves quickly form. The water is rapidly lost by transpiration through the leaves. A river flows through him to the sky to become clouds. His purpose is grand and the surge of life, his own and that of the others in his sphere, is a potent tonic.

Soon after the warm air and the start of spring, people began to walk the path at his base. He senses them as they approach and feels their lives as they walk through his space and he recognizes those that return.

Summer is the season of the insects. Their sounds and activities nearly fill his consciousness. It is the most exciting time of the year but he is relieved when the din finally subsides with the coming of autumn.

The seasons and the cycles continued. The people that he recognized grew. Some became old and a few were the seeds for generations that walked past the tree.

As he aged the gifts of living grew.

Centuries passed. He became aware of successions beyond the seasons and the years. The journey around the sun was just one of life's paths. The seasons became part of larger cycles and these didn't repeat as the winters and summers did. These weren't cycles of temperature and light. They were cycles of life. There were repetitions of time.

Generations repeated. Some animals were born twice. The shorter the life span of the creature the more often it could happen. Sometimes too, seasons repeated. Twice he awoke from the winter slumber to a spring and a year that had happened before. The actions and outcomes of the repeated year were all different than the first but it was the same year with the same living things.

At first he was puzzled, but by the time the man held him he was aware of nature's purpose. He knew why he had returned. It was to bring the man back to his body and his time. Patience would now be his. He could now accept all.

So when the man prayed to the tree, the tree answered by returning his cleansed soul.

The warmth subsided so he released the tree. As he wiped the tears from his face, he gazed up at the branches then at all the other trees within sight. As he turned toward home and resumed his walk the gloom did not return. He felt new. Remembering his prayer, he turned back toward the tree to see the sunlight dancing off the leaves. They looked like a thousand tiny wings.