For the Memory of Trees

The oaks and the pines, and their brethren of the wood, have seen so many suns rise and set, so many seasons come and go, and so many generations pass into silence, that we may well wonder what "the story of the trees" would be to us if they had tongues to tell it, or we ears fine enough to understand. ~Author Unknown, quoted in Quotations for Special Occasions by Maud van Buren, 1938

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk? ~Alice Walker, The Color Purple, 1982

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. ~William Shakespeare

Just up the road from Ranfurly, on the edge of the Nasby Forest, about 10kms away, there is a curiously named grove of ponderosa and douglas fir called the Black Forest. The sign pointing in is half-hidden, difficult to see, so it is easy to pass by and miss this treasure. It is almost as if the forest doesn’t want just any visitor. Its stories are for the sympathetic, for those who will pay attention.

I pull up, get out and listen. The nor-west wind is brushing its fingers through the treetops, tousling them playfully, teasing, an affectionate big brother with a ready but rough hand. It has been doing this for three days now, so a cold front can’t be too far away. The lenticular clouds rambling across the vast blue dome of the sky are pointing to a coming change.

These are old trees, planted over a century ago in a time when timber was a precious commodity, when the landscape was the home of solitary, aloof rock outcrops and gossiping grasses. They were foreigners back then, imported to see how they would adapt, whether they would learn the language, identify. They have. They are now so assimilated that is as if they have always been here. They speak the language, they know the customs. They have stories to tell.

The path twitches and turns among the trunks jinking its way deeper and deeper into the grove, and as it does so, takes me further and further way from the outside world. The occasional hum of a passing vehicle diminishes with each footstep until I am lost to civilisation. Willingly so. My feet whisper on the pine needles, the memories of past seasons strewn across the ground like discarded notepaper. Now there is silence and the trees are free to speak.

I am back in my childhood once more, a part of the forest, away beyond the demands of my family, beyond my responsibilities, integrated into a Time Before. The trees that have whispered each night outside my bedroom window, beckoning me to come and share, are all around me and in need of conversation.

So I find a place among them, where a small patch of sun with a look of utter surprise and joy on its face at having found a way in and down, is resting. I sit and listen, travelling back. I can hear my sister’s Peter Pan laughter echoing, bouncing from trunk to trunk, and running away into the distance. Occasional birds warble, magpies away up in the treetops somewhere. I can see myself wandering round, playing with fallen branches, some with a pine cone or two on them. A sword to help me defeat the pirate hordes come to find me, a club to hold the ravenous T-Rex at bay, perhaps a defence against the Monster-under-the-Bed that will surely be waiting for me when I get home. I am riding a camel across vast elephantine dunes; I am bringing order to the infidels. I am travelling many worlds, living simultaneous adventures, where I will never be defeated, never be killed, where victory is certain.. And I will come home with enormous mounds of glittering, exotic treasures.

The trees know. The trees know the secret heart of a boy, and they collude willingly and freely. They tell me stories passed by treetop and wind across the roof of the world. They talk of Yetis lurking in the rhododendron groves of the Himalayas, of jaguars prowling intently in the rainforest of the Amazon. I hear of the first waka arriving in New Zealand, and the misty, softly-rustling brown figures from my whakapapa slipping carefully through the pohutukawa groves, alert to any threats in this new land. I hear of famine and disease, of whole villages taking sanctuary in the forest to avoid the Evil King’s Men, and then quietly returning when danger has passed. I learn that Trees have befriended man since the very Beginning. It hasn't always been the other way around. But they patient and willing to wait. Their time will come again.

I can smell the heady tang of pine needles and feel the rough warmth of the bark comforting, protective but brusque. This is the incense and myrrh of the Three Kings I learned about in Sunday School; this is the feel and smell of tar and pitch and canvas and salt spray that Odysseus experienced on his way home to Ithaca. Past, Present and Future all meet in the crossroads of the forest. Reality and Imagination shake hands at this point. And I am here. Part of it. For an eternal Moment.

But Time and the sun-patch have moved on. In the distance I can hear my mother’s worried calls, along with my sister wondering where I am. They come steadily closer, circling around my now-cold sanctuary. It is time to emerge. It is time to go back to the outside world.

They needn’t be worried. They really shouldn’t be.

I am among friends.