
Grandmother Tree
Her wisdom is a gift.
She tolerates the feisty squirrels, commenting not at all as they steal green tomatoes larger than their heads from the raised beds. Bounding, full tilt, they race up her trunk, only to splat the too-firm-not-yet-ripe greenness onto her branches after one big bite. I wonder if there will be tomato plants sprouting up through the new grass in springtime.
Three days ago she gave me the first hint of things to come. A large leaf, one of her largest one might suppose, drifted and twirled and floated through the sunlit breeze. It landed cannily on the branch of one of her friends before twirling to a stem-up landing on the freshly cut grass.
Lawns like this are a wonder to me now. I left their manicured natures far behind a few years ago, or so I thought at the time. I followed the energy, preparing for fall. Preparing for THE FALL, truth be told, only it had already happened. Funny I hadn’t seen it that way till now.
Preparing for something that has already occurred is just…so…human. And yet, the rural-to-remote areas I have inhabited have brought me back to myself. Places where the land and the critters outnumber the bipeds will always call me.
Today Grandmother Tree’s still presence speaks to her forbearance through the thunderstorms of yesterday. The new kittens huddled and hid as lightning crashed all around us, rain hurling itself against the windows like waves against a cliff face. Through it all Grandmother stood tall. Tall as she has learned to stand. Tall and strong as mountains. Limber and powerful as the waves. Her bark today bears the wet of yesterday’s weather.
Other trees were struck and ‘pruned’ by electric bolts from above. Not Grandmother, who has learned when to reach and call to the heavens and when to hold her peace.
The storm drew more of her leaves toward the ground. Drying on the edges, not yet colored for autumn, each one holds a promise. Wait and see…

Sometimes we call the lightning. Sometimes we weather the storm.
Wise beyond their tender bitty bodies, the kittens hid under the bed, then crawled onto my lap, as we watched together. “What IS that? Why does it DO that?” A multi-spiked lightning strike mirrored in gold kitten eyes is a sight worth seeing. As is the ensuing BIG BLINK and wide-eyed wonder.
I will miss them when I move on. When next I see them each will have the haughty dignity of his/her nature. Grown into their places in the flow.
Grandmother Tree will still stand. One hopes. Her current keepers will certainly fight any attempts at otherwise. Will she recognize next year’s squirrels making off with next year’s tomatoes?
“They are all the same,” she chuckles. “There is always a next wave. Wait and see.”
