The Tree

The Tree

By

John W Drake

Only the ignorant would call me a tree, it is an insult. Only the young and strong can claim the title. When applied to a gnarled and twisted old outcrop such as myself you disparage all that have the right to it. I may have once had such a claim in my youth, but I am no longer a tree. I am old and withered, clinging on to what remains of my now stunted limbs and feeble greenery.

I remember well those years long past, when I grew tall and proud. My roots; anchored in the fertile soil of my valley; drinking from the cool stream that ran through it. My branches were long and proud, with birds nesting in them at summers’ dawn. Nothing makes a tree grow taller with pride than nesting weavers.

That was before, before the soldiers came. I had once thought that they were my friends, for they took the ample shade that I offered and returned the kindness with the dung from their horses.

The day that they came with the axe, everything changed. They hacked at me with a blunt edge, first my outer skin, then through my softer wood. They chopped and hacked until I was nothing but a weeping stump. I guess I was lucky to survive, though sometimes I feel that death would be preferable to this miserable state.

I wish that I understood why they did it. The question has plagued me for many years. I saw them plant my severed limbs on a distant hill. Didn’t they know that a tree without roots can’t grow?

The man that they had nailed to my limbs, He understood. He forgave them. He told me that a great tree will grow from my suffering that my sacrifice was not in vain. So I forgave them too, but I will never again be a called a tree.