Merry Christmas 2018!

This Man

He was much like his grandfather as both were large and burly men. They let their hair grow from their heads and faces like the unkempt bushes deep in the forest. They both had brown eyes, which were indistinguishable from mud, and both of their teeth were more crooked than my own branches. Unlike his grandfather who had planted much of this forest, this man did not simply walk amongst us; he talked to us.

He would often come and walk among us, quite often, in fact. Every evening as the sun crested over the ocean of trees, he would stroll through the forest and come right up to me. Every day he brought an ax and a rope, nothing more and nothing less. He would tell me about his life and what he did. His sorrows and satisfactions were notes strung amongst an eager audience. We hung on every word. The days turned from months to years. Within this time, he went from standing in my shade, to sitting against me, and finally climbing up and laying in my branches.

He shared some resemblance to his father. Both were tall, very tall in fact. There were times the saplings would think they were trees who could move about as we wish could. Both were prone to seasons of intense melancholy, and both were bright and imaginative individuals. His father would walk through the forest whistling the most exuberant tunes. The son, however, sang no song, nor whistled any tune for us. Never even so much as a hum.  He would, however, walk through our ranks and tell us poems which had the unique quality of being written by the angels themselves.

For years this man’s family would care for us by removing our dead and giving room for the saplings to rise up, but now it was just this man left. His grandfather was buried beneath the first tree and this man’s father was buried beneath the last tree. Their wives were buried with them and both this man’s father and grandfather had but one son. It was just this man who remained. No wife to grieve and no child to bury him when he dies. Just him and just us. We would offer warm breezes and attempt to sing our songs, and when he was younger he would thank us and then whisper the stories of old and the words of heavens, but now all the stories he tells are sad and we see him less and less. He has put the ax away and only the rope remains

He came up to me on a cold sunny day to say, “I think I’m at the end of my trail old friend.” My weary branches were bending towards him even though no wind was blowing on that day. He leaned against me, “It’s been so hard since ma passed away,” he started to cry and his tears watered my thirsty roots, “I don’t think I can go back to that place friend.” This man confided in me, “Everywhere I look I see them. In every room and at every turn they stand there looking at me with cross eyes and a stern frown.

I dropped a leaf on his head-- something I had done with his father after his mother had passed, a story I know this man knew. The leaf tumbled downwards and landed in the middle of this man’s head.

This man chuckled and looked up, “You know my pa would tell me a story every once in a while after Mimi died... Pa said he came to a tree. I imagine it could have been you, friend, and began crying all ugly-like. He said he started saying some damn foolish things about life.” This man paused for a moment as he held back tears like a poorly maintained dam ready to rupture. “If pa knew what I’d become I don’t think he’d be very proud of me. If pa found himself here, I think he’d be real upset with me for thinkin’ this way about life.” A small breeze blew by allowing me to rock towards this man in an attempt to cover him in my embrace.

This man arose and began to climb up in my branches. The rope slung around his shoulder, as he would do every so often. He continued his story, “Well, as I was saying before that embarrassin’ moment, Pa said he was entertaining some pretty foolish thoughts there for a while. Until a leaf happened to plop down on his head. Coincidence, I always thought. But Pa? Pa always said the leaf was placed there by an angel ‘cuz only one leaf fell that day and it fell square on his head like someone had plucked it off and placed it there for a reason. Pa said as he looked at the leaf, he was reminded of something.” Another breeze blew by and I softly whispered into it, “What was he reminded of?” This man found a spot in my branches along a rather thick part, swung the rope over the branch, and began tying it like he was trying to make a swing. “Pa said it was beauty - that beauty would save the world in the end. Pa always liked to think that if a truly bad man saw a beautiful thing that he couldn’t do a bad thing in front of it. Pa said beauty stops evil like light stops the night. I never did quite understand what Pa meant really, but Pa believed it firmly and told me just about every day.”

This man finished tying the knots into his rope. My branches bent in anticipation as this man prepared to jump. Another breeze blew by, and I said as loud as I could, “Do not do this! Is there not beauty here?”                      

The End