The Thoughts of Trees by Lyra

The Thoughts of Trees

Read The Thoughts of Trees

I suppose I should not be surprised. The trees have heard us talk for ages, heard us utter our joy at the first blossoms of spring or the radiant colours of autumn, our regret at seeing a tree felled by a storm, at the leafless crowns in winter. Walking under their branches we spoke of politics and poetry, joy and mourning, love and hate. How many children chattered among them while picking fruit! How many unhappy lovers poured out their hearts to a tree when they didn’t dare speak to their friends!

But we did so because trees were so comfortably outside the world of words: Living creatures that gave you the illusion of a patient listener, but did not truly listen. Or talk back! Would I have told a tree of my longing for Lúthien if I had, even for a second, known that the tree might answer, might store that knowledge and speak of it - perhaps the very moment that she danced underneath it? I blush at the idea.
Still, I suppose I should not be surprised.

I shift uneasily. Suddenly I wonder whether the tree objects to my feet on its bark, my weight on its branches. I lean in to listen.
It does not speak of my feet, my weight, or, worst of all, my secrets. It whispers of the fresh sap running through its veins after the dead of winter, of the joy of new life; of the tender leaves it will bear within another few weeks, the blossoms it can feel budding at the tips of its branches. There has been a light rain this night; it speaks of the lovely droplets that glitter on its twigs.
I smile, and pat the tree’s bark, and give its spring-song a melody.