Bark was as woven threads in the most magical tapestry. Ariah followed them with lightest touch. From such simple fibres a tree is made, yet trees are magic. Trees are guardians. Trees are home to the spirits of angel sprites. She hugged her arms wide, embracing it as a halo of green eyes kept watch above. Her eyes travelled upward to its highest point. Instead of narrowing to a spindle, there was a home, not human made - yet grown as a natural part of it. No sooner had she wished to climb, foot and hand holds brailled the trunk. This was it. The adventure had begun.
Arboreal limbs raised up to the hitting storm. Relentless. Unforgiving. Blown was the rain, lashing in serpentine strikes. How unseasonal it was. How unexpected. May pawing as if it were December’s twin, claws out. Gash! De-bark! This once prettiest of trees swayed, its once lichened trunk was a dark mirror of scales. Missing patches, raw to the cold, bled sap. What remained, leaked. There it slumped in a shocked forest, praying for any easing respite.
Gnarled bark trickled as eons tears, swollen from storm’s brutal lash. Leaves were bowed with such heavy drops, their flutterings, their chattering, almost ceased. Drip. Drop. Drip. The once elevated canopy took a most disheveled form. Boughs that once bore weight with ease, creaked to snapping point. Live or die. Survive or not. Such is the struggle for these arboreal lifeboats of the land.
In that sunken brittle soil, rotting roots clung. As a withered necrotic hand, each winter wind exposed it to the creeping light. Even the most feeble sigh of icy breeze rocked it, taking it to an ever more precarious angle. Creak! Sinews once vibrant with life snapped, heard only by the beetles that burrowed. Of leaves, none would it bare. Of berry banquets, none could it grow. And, so it sang a collapsing lament to the earth, its soft landing and grave.
Beneath a bonny sky of make-believe wonder, a party of white clouds did play. How they skipped amid the blue, these great reflectors of the sun. Page white they morphed, this way and that. Clouds that day were visual music. The birdsong was brightest ink on page. Merry! Merry! Bonny, blythe and gay! For heart and soul, it was better than any clear sky day. What a puzzle! What a canvas! What a sight for the dreaming eye!
The sky was a giggle of clouds, waltzing in the blue. The trees, tickled by a sweetly mischievous wind, were the embodiment of mirth. The path rose beneath each rising stride as an upward tilted giant’s palm. Up! Up! Up we travelled to the music of our springing feet. Then, with hearty voice, with dancing dreams, we reached the very top. What a view! What a soulful sight!
On a crow-black night, the tree met its last. Beneath conspiratorial clouds of purple edge, it creak-groaned. Long had it been the home of owls, sanctuary and nesting place. Long had it been the king of trees. Yet even the strongest can fall. Even the most mighty can be felled. That night in a chainsaw wind, in an electric lightning swarm, it made its last salute to the forest it loved. 'Acorns. Acorns. Grow! Grow!' were its final words and wishes.
Tell me again of brown poetry, of the majesty of weathered boughs and well anchored roots. Tell me again of their punk barnets, crowning the land at merest hint of heat. Tell me again because without the trees I am the lost and unfound.
The tree, an earth-heaven highway of browns, had not once been seen to grow since she were a wind-born seed. Yet daily, she became a giant stretching upward with wide protective boughs.
Into the jocund day the tree stands as cheerleader to each passing spirit.
The tree in the ever-hug of the atmosphere, crows the hillock and flourishes both wand and foliage.
Tree bark is the brown fingerprint of my soul, for as I touch it I feel a divine connection spark.
The tree leans into the sunny rays as if they were lovers in eternal trance.
Though black heavens and sun-lit days, the tree is sentry to landscape, the stoic guardian of so many souls.
The tree is the grand poem of the living world, a beauty that encourages the spirit to dance though words, to make our odes to it's branches that spread heaven-bound. And in the strong light of the new day it creates a kiss for the senses in those moving leaves, the thousand green hues and the soft whispering in the wind.
There in the centre of a million grassy wands stands a tree, her bark so patterned as if carved by her own rain-born flash rivers. She stretches up, as if so proud to stand there under the sun in any weather. How I wish she could see her own beauty, her green bounty and earthy browns, yet perhaps I should wish for her peace and the wisdom to simply be what I am.
I imagine each dancing leaf as one from a favourite book, each one with a story of nature, with its own lyrics of the wind and memories of the birds. Each one is art, a bold green with infinite nuance for the eye who dwells in awe and love. This tree, this mighty feat of nature, has taken so many years to grow, all of those tiny moments morphing imperceptibly into the present. Yet that's the thing about growth, it is only when we compare with a sense of the months and years past that we see such amazing changes.
In this light that paints my skin so warmly, the trees are dancing ladies, each in dresses more fabulous than any designer can craft. They move, choreographed by the wind, in perfect time with one another. They are the life and soul of this early summer morning, and I wonder how many hues of green my eyes are witnessing. As they stretch upwards and outwards toward the light, drinking in rays as pure as the rain, I stretch my arms up too, fingers spread toward the sun and slowly begin to dance.
Though the path is dark, cast into shadow by the tall mossy pines on either side, the sun must be brilliant beyond it. Every tree glows brightly virescent just at the edges of the trunks, a biological halo of sorts that brings a soothing happiness I've been missing these past few days.
The tree lifted his branches to the sky as if his very presence was enough to beat back the darkness and command the daylight to fall on his papery leaves. His bark shone like the right kind of gold, the sort that inspires the mind to heady heights of imagination, opening doors to fantastical kingdoms. It was no wonder that the tree is where Charlotte went when her soul needed to recharge, when all the money in the world felt cold but the touch of the trunk and strong branches felt like a hug from the heavens above.