A Poem from the mossy trail.
“Traveler on an endless journey,
what brings you here today?”,
asked the ghost of trees — dead and old and new.
“What brings you here to this
cradle, this grave, this lap of nature,
this trail of a mossy stature?”
I looked around me and shrugged.
“I don’t know”, I said.
“Why do I do the things that I do,
and why not — the things that I do not.
I do not have reasons to be, not per say.
A note follows another note, and so-
the song is sung. I am here because I am
nowhere else right now. Why are you here?”
The trees collectively thought; they think silently.
I thought of a question to ask them later.
The trees present there said,
“We are here because there were trees here before us.”
The ghosts of trees that were before said,
“We are here because there were trees here before us.”
The ghosts of trees that were before them too, said,
“We don’t remember. But it must have been because,
there were trees here before us.”
The ghosts of trees now forgotten said,
“We were here because there was land here,
and there was a seed, and there was water and air.
We were here because that tiny seed realized,
that it was in fact a giant tree.”
“Must have been one hell of a realization.
Also, why was it silent when you all were thinking?”, I inquired
the question that had come to me before.
“Is not the wind but the trees talking to each other?”
I sensed the trees grow tense at that, if it -
was possible for wood to emote.
“Wind is an alien thing — not known to us.
It comes from far and goes afar and nests not with us,
or among us. So call it not as our thoughts. It is an evil thing,
cold and cruel and heartless — living on borrowed fragrances.
We do not think as the wind.
We think and talk with our roots.
All of us, wherever we may be, share this earth-
we all have the one root- we are earth-brothers.
A thought that one of us has, all of us have.
For the most part we agree, but sometimes we do not.
And when we don’t, the ground shakes.”
“Interesting”, I said. “I never thought of all of you as,
being of one root. But it makes sense, now that I think about it.
I wonder if it is true for us humans?
Do we all share the one same root?
Maybe, may be not.
I don’t know everyone to be able to make that statement.
Do you trees know all other trees, to make such claims?
And how do you call each other then? Do you have names?”
“You are making a very fundamental mistake when you ask that question”, they said.
“You are thinking of every trunk that you see as one tree,
and thus think that this place here has thousands of trees.
We are not a many trees- we are the one tree.
There is only one the one tree — all you see are faces of it.
Maybe somewhere, in some jungle is a tree,
that IS all of us, and when they cut it down, we all will perish.
We do not know that — for that is now forgotten even to the ghosts.
But we do know this. Everything that you see here -
root, stem, trunk, bough, leaf, moss, decay -
we all know each other as much as you know yourself.
Well, maybe slightly better than you know yourself.”
“I don’t think I understand”, I said.
“You are not supposed to. It takes a tree to know a tree”, they replied.
“One day, I will plant a tree and water it, and watch it grow and see it blossom.
Maybe then I will know. But for now, fellow travellers on this endless journey,
can you tell me why I was here?”
“You were here for the same reason everyone else is here. To take a walk.”
“Then I guess I better get back to walking.
I have miles to go before I sleep — or so someone wise had said.
But it was nice talking to you. See you next time.”
And saying thus I left. I walked round the mossy trail
and came back home and fell asleep.
I went through the woods today and I did not just walk through them.
I made friends with the trees.
Mostly composed walking the Mossy Ridge trail. More of my writing is here.
