"Change In The Forest"

The earth yawned cavernously, whiskered roots twitching, fringing the raw red earth which when observed seemed to ooze a mixture of water and blood over its surface, a rising of anticipation moulding the fresh surface until it congealed into a glutinous mass.

The two mature oak trees had seemed to stand for an eternity, so close that they had brushed together constantly, grooming their shapes so they grew together as one head moving, nodding acceptance in the wind. The sound of growth could be heard, that twisting, aching, groaning of movement, of life, but the air grew heavier, denser, and it became hard to breathe. Suddenly without warning there was a silence…. a suppression……… a strange subsidence…..as one of the trees slowly sank, slipping from alertly receptively erectile to horizontally inert, uprooting with a deep moan from the earth … Had there been lightning? It was not seen by any eye, but above the ground all stopped, suspended in time, and only the earthworms writhed in anticipation in the gaping wound of the newly exposed earth.

The little tawny owl felt like she had been there as long as the forest, from time immemorial, watching with an increased sense of instability, of the inevitability of approaching doom, waiting for…..what? She had wished she was like the great white owl who swooped in silently, and to whom all the creatures went for advice. Would she ever be so wise? Would she ever have a role to play to help others in this world where she found herself? Was she destined to always be a watcher as others lived?

And yet it had been her who had been there, watching, when their world changed, when the ground on which they had their security shook, and time stopped as it gave up one of their own. But time had once again moved on, reclaiming, embalming. She remembered the oozing red earth seeping with pain, the anguish as half of the great tree gracefully toppled silently, and the groan of the remnant of that great pair as she was torn from his arms, wrenching, breaking the entwining twigs, ripping off delicate leaves, slicing to its very core, its reason for being; its partner in life, grown and now groaning together, partners in death.

She knew that nothing could ever be the same again… how could it? The landscape was changed brutally, irretrievably, yet time only stopped momentarily, not halting permanently as had seemed inevitable. With amazement, she saw that the raw red earth did not remain so naked, so vulnerable. Life rekindled and a mantel of green slowly crept over it, little by little, a soft moss of memories, tender melting moments unfurling fronds of ferns fringing the edges, fragrant thorn making sharply beautiful jags on the exposed face, forget-me-nots dotting the surface between the sunshine beam of celandines followed later by bluebells nodding in agreement as the wind blew.

The tree lay and gave shelter to a multitude of insects, softening gradually as they fed on its substance, gaining sustenance. A badger made its holt between the roots, coming out doggedly only at night to forage, its white streak seen occasionally in the moonlight, but the strangest thing was yet to be seen….
She had not noticed before, but almost in anticipation, the tree had sent out suckers just before it fell, firing tiny shoots from its base, glowing pearls of great price that dotted around, precious jewels sparkling in the dew. These were not the seedlings that had grown from the union of the great pair, which were already rooted and growing strongly independent, with their own roots searching for stability and meaning, but something fresh from the female tree alone. Now, with the roots pulled out of the ground, the suckers were desperate to survive. They needed the strength of a stable root system and had only survived till now because of the creativity of their host. The other trees watched too, willing them to survive, because in each of these was a nucleus of their host, a possibility of her creativity surviving. But they could do nothing, only watch as they struggled, unable to put down more than a tap root for water, with no fibrous network to give them stability. How long could they survive? How long would they remember them?

Then, wonder of wonder, the grounds-man came, and tenderly took them up and transplanted each of them next to other trees, drafting them to their strong trunks, crafting them so they could grow together as one. The creativity of the parent tree would not be lost, her mothering would not be in vain. Continuation of her ideas for growth would live on, linked to others, always remembered, two in one, each enriched, spread wider than she could ever have done on her own, stronger, each tree stamped with her essence as a memorial.

The remaining oak also changed over time. First small changes, as the damaged twigs and leaves were renewed with the new season. Later, where they had grown together in support of each other, the branches that had been constrained to allow the other to flourish, stretched and groaned a little as life came back into atrophied fibres as they reached for the stars he had not seen till now. Balance was regained as his roots steadied and groped out in the depths of the earth where he had not been able to reach before. He went deeper now, below the beauty of the valley created by the fall, to new fertile places he had not known existed.

Life went on, and he would go on as long as he was allowed, holding together the centre of the forest as a sign of stability in the eternal plan until it was time to lay down his arms and let another tree become the centre of the forest. Everything had its season and there would always be another one to look forward to as long as the earth continued to turn.

The little tawny owl sighed with satisfaction. All was well in the forest. There had been no need for despair. While the grounds-man kept an eye on all that was going on, the balance would be restored. Sometimes they forgot he was always around, watching, tending invisibly…., until times like this when his touch could be seen by all who chose to look and wonder at his restorative power. And now she too had a purpose. She who had watched for so long had seen the invisible watcher, the grounds-man, and could tell the story so he would not be forgotten.

Kittie Carr