Among the Trees

Among The Trees

Fred and I went walking among the trees this afternoon. We just wanted to be in their midst, feel their energy, their passion, their communication with each other. As usual, the mountain and the trees were singing their song, composed of the babbling of a stream, breeze whishing through the leaves, settling of the earth and the groaning and rubbing together of the trees themselves. All together, it makes a mighty operetta, soothing and yet energizing and invigorating at the same time.
Today was different. We felt it as soon as we reached the thickest part of the trees along the road. The song was there, birds trilling and sending their joy across the forest, but it was different, even Fred felt it and responded. Instead of taking off willy-nilly through the trees, he paused at the edge of the forest, cocked his head, and listened. It seemed…sad. The forest was singing but it was a low, slow, quiet kind of song. They knew we were among them, we could feel that they knew. It wasn’t threatening, this knowing, more like…thank you for coming. The energy was a low throbbing instead of the usual tsunami of sounds …all sounds were in tune with each other.
Not often do the birds, trees, insects, wind, earth and stream sing together, in perfect harmony, today they did. As we walked among the trees, a path seemed to open and invite us in. The trees beckoned, lured, invited us among them and we followed.
There wasn’t the usual rushing around of small creatures, or rat-a-tat-tat of woodpecker, all held a solemn, respectful quiet. As if a dirge, a wake was being held among the forest. We followed deeper, into areas we had never been, and the trees beckoned us on, their limbs and branches seemingly waving us forward, to a sudden clearing in the forest.
This was not a clearing that had evolved over time, this was sudden; the underbrush shattered and trees pushed over, leaning against each other, dirt and rocks and roots became visible where they had been exposed to unaccustomed daylight. It was the tree.
THE tree. The Mother Tree. An ancient Red Oak, massive at its base, its length unseen where the top lay among the undergrowth as if it were being pillowed, protected, and comforted. The other trees around gave the impression of leaning over this tree, caressing her with their leaves, this massive creator of a majority of them. Her offspring were spread throughout this forest, sown in the form of acorns by the wind and stream and the small, scampering animals. This was the Mother. This was the reason for the respectful quiet of the mountain’s song today. The trees were grieving the loss of one of their respected elders, the mother of many.
Fred and I stood at the edge of the new clearing in the thick forest and felt the waves of emotion sweeping from tree to tree and bush to shrub and carried on the wind and the rills of her stream. The entire mountain forest was mourning the loss of a great old one.
Her roots stood naked and exposed to the sunlight for the first time in over 200 years, or more, and her offspring began weaving her tale. She was old, more than the 200 years I had surmised, much more. She had withstood storm, fire, the shaking, and resettling of the earth around her when she was still a stripling, able to flex in the chaos and remain rooted. She stood quietly in a small corner of the forest, shielded from the best of the sunlight and rain and nutrients. This served her well. Mother tree didn’t grow as fast or as sturdy as the trees around her, and she stayed somewhat slender and a bit twisted from the shaking of the earth. This made her unacceptable to the loggers when they came through harvesting the larger trees, the better trees, the best trees for lumber to send to England from whence the loggers came.
She was here before the loggers arrived and remained long after their bodies had recycled back into the dirt they had come from, fertilizing it as they decomposed. She had survived many such forays of the lumbermen because she was not straight and tall like the best trees in the small edge of forest where she grew.
Her small corner of the forest regrew the underbrush thicker than before due to the increased sunlight, becoming thick and thorny, presenting an impassable barrier to the next wave of humans. These in search of the wood to burn, they took the left overs, those unsuitable for lumber. She was spared yet again.
The brambles gathered about her to hide and shield her as if they knew she was destined to resurrect the forest, she survived yet again and continued growing. The field became a clearing and then a cleared field, plowed and smoothed, rocks turned up and removed, shrubbery, trees and bushes unceremoniously swept away by the men that now claimed the land and began farming it. Except for that far corner, it just didn’t seem worth the trouble of removing the incredible number of rocks and boulders that had accumulated there. The tree was spared yet again.
Years of farming passed and the surrounding area changed with time. What had once been a spring of fresh, clear, icy cold water had been diverted long ago to irrigate crops and would never flow there again. Walls of rocks had formed near where they had been wrenched from their earthen bed, vines, thorns and underbrush grew around and among the piles creating a refuge and home for many of the forest creatures. Mother tree began growing faster.
Mans clearing of the area had allowed more sunlight to reach her and more nutrients to be washed down the slope to her from the heavy spring rains. She grew. The farms fell to man’s depression, foreclosed on, abandoned and left to grow wild. Grow wild it did, brambles and jack pine and raspberries and crabapple trees giving way to the hardy fast growing tulip trees that secured the earth with their wide spreading shallow roots. The forest replenished itself, and the tree had, become The Mother.
The one that lay before Fred and me now, these hundreds of years later. The one that the surrounding forest grieved over, the rain dripping from their leaves like mourners tears. They sang their sad song of goodbye to Mother tree and the birds and stream and wind and small scurrying animals join the trees in their song of farewell to a great old one. Even in death and decay, she cares for her young and the other trees around her.
Her upper limbs and branches will deteriorate and be carried away as nest material. Her bark will become a refuge for numerous beetles, grubs, and other insects and arachnids for years to come. Where she fell, her trunk created a depression beneath her that will serve as shelter for many of the forest dwellers through the long, snowy Western Maryland winters to come. Eventually she would be completely reabsorbed into the earth that had birthed her, had sheltered, fed and watered her for all those many years until she had stood on her own; Until she had become the Mother of many and many trees, until she began the next stage in her life, feeding and fertilizing and protecting her forest with her own decaying trunk.
That was the song of the forest and mountain this day. Fred and I were permitted to join and pay our respects because we are frequent visitors, always tending what we can for the forest.

We both stood silent and respectful as the song slowly faded into the noise of man’s engines and machines ripping the guts from the neighboring forest and mountains causing me to wonder…how long until they take all of the forest, all of the mountain all of the streams and clear, cold springs. How long do we have together this forest and Fred…and I?