The Blood of the Wood Cries Out

And he said to him: What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to me from the earth. 

—Genesis 4:10

Such a very long time ago, a shovel sank into rich soil, and moved that soil elsewhere. A hole was made, and into that hole was settled the root ball of a young chestnut tree. The hole was refilled, and the tree was left to fare as best it could. 

In the ground, the roots grew. Some reached down to anchor the sapling. Others grew out, searching for water and nutrients to absorb. Some of these encountered other roots, roots of kin, roots of other immature chestnut trees. Where they met, they intertwined, until the whole avenue of planted trees was connected, one to the next. 

Above ground, the trunk and branches grew. Long, narrow, sharply-ribbed leaves, stressed into desiccation by replanting, uncurled and filled with moisture once more, turning green and gathering sunlight. Slim branches stretched towards the sky. 

Year after year, the slight trunk swelled, and more branches were added. In time, the Castanea sativa matured, bloomed, and bore a rich crop of chestnuts. And so it continued to live. 

But in the fifty-fourth year since its planting, the chestnut tree was nearly destroyed. 

Trees live at a slow pace, much slower than that of human beings. They seem to be capable of living thousands of years; that is, if all goes well in their environment, and if they make good decisions.

Decisions. Did you stumble over that word, because I applied it to a tree? Perhaps you think that because they do not have a brain, or appendages to walk about with, like those found in the animal kingdom, they cannot make choices or retain a memory. Perhaps, too, you have stumbled over a tree’s roots at some point in your life. 

The root ball is the most difficult part of a tree to destroy, and if all but that one part is damaged, it is possible for the tree to grow again. If any part of a tree is like our brain, if they hold any memories or personalities, surely they must be hidden here, deep in the roots, though their equivalent of a brain must be very different from ours. 

One thing in which the roots of trees do not differ from our brains is in the sending and receiving of electrical signals. Signals sent to a human brain from the rest of the body move faster than 150 miles per hour. The electrical signals which move through tree roots travel only a third of an inch per second. The signals sent from a tree’s leaves to its roots take even longer to register, for those move only a third of an inch every minute. These signals can be sent from leaves to roots to sound the alarm concerning a hungry caterpillar's munching mouthparts. The tree reacts as swiftly as possible, and within an hour or two, defensive chemical compounds will be on the way to make the attacker’s meal unbearably bitter. 

In the fifty-fourth year since its planting, footfalls vibrated the soil between the roots of the chestnut tree. Men tramped past, out of the fortress which had stood there since medieval times.

So many would not return.

The trees of a nearby wood provided a temporary safe haven from enemy fire, and a sheltered place to treat the wounded. A soldier crouched in a trench, scribbling on a scrap of paper, trying to make sense of the utter madness into which his world had dissolved. But there was no sense to be found.

"The blood swept lands and seas of red

Where angels dare/fear to tread.

As God cried a tear of pain as the angels fell,

Again and again.

As the tears of mine fell to the ground

To sleep with the flowers of red

As any be dead

My children see and work through fields of my

Own with corn and wheat,

Blessed by love so far from pain of my resting

Fields so far from my love.

It be time to put my hand up and end this pain

Of living hell. to see the people around me

Fall someone angel as the mist falls around

And the rain so thick with black thunder I hear

Over the clouds, to sleep forever and kiss

The flower of my people gone before time

To sleep and cry no more

I put my hand up and see the land of red,

This is my time to go over,

I may not come back

So sleep, kiss the boys for me."

He left his poem behind when he went over the top of the trench in a charge.

He never came back for it.

The very earth in which the chestnut tree stood rooted was shaken. Its branches were rattled by blasts of air more powerful than any winter storm it had ever weathered, though autumn was not yet past.

The blasts continued for days and nights, weeks, months, and into years. Sometimes many blasts, sometimes few, sometimes far, sometimes near. One day, a blast fell too close. The chestnut tree’s entire crown and most of its trunk was blown to splinters, but for a tall, jagged stump. Even then the blasts continued, shaking the sunless roots. 

Until one day, the blasts stopped. All around the chestnut tree, many others of its kin had been damaged too terribly to ever regrow. But as they are in life, so trees are in death: they take things slowly. They will not die instantly from any ailment, and even if they are crushed and rotted down to a mere rim of stump, if their roots have contact with roots of their kin, nutrients which cannot be produced by a stump will be fed to it. 

This one had still some connections, and it was not all gone. But it would take time to grow again. If any human feelings can be attributed to trees, some at least can perhaps be called patient. 

While the tree took its time, other things sprang up about its roots. Red, like the substance which had been spilled over wide fields so recently. Flowers with velvety blood red petals waved on spindly stems and tossed like a red tide in the slightest breeze. Poppies thrive in churned soil, and the conflicts which had ravaged the lands suited the growth of the Papaver rhoeas perfectly. 

Flowers live on a much faster time scale than trees, sprouting from seeds into mature plants, flowering, and dying all in a month or two. Their generations come and go, a new one springing up and creating the next every year. Trees take longer. Even when the seed of a tree does find itself in favorable growing conditions, it must spend years growing old and large enough to produce offspring. 

Years passed. The shattered chestnut tree began to regrow, but with a remarkable trait: instead of a single trunk, four rose from the ruin. The tree had twenty-one peaceful years in which to burgeon before new danger arrived.

Invaders came and held sway over the rightful inhabitants of the land. A long and bitterly cold winter descended. The oppressed people chopped down many trees, including the rest of the four-trunked chestnut’s kin of the avenue. But the quadrupled tree was considered too dangerous to fell, for it tilted in an ominous way over dwellings. The tree survived the desperate firewood seekers, and grew on for many more years. 

Even now, in this very year, it still lives. As spring approaches, the four-trunked surviving chestnut of Iepre, Belgium, will wake from its dormant slumber. The sap within will thaw and quicken, moving up and down the 65-foot height of the tree. Buds will swell along the branches. Leaves will unfurl to gather sunlight, forming a 98-foot wide crown. The tree will flower and fruit, its bright green spiked shells guarding rich brown nuts. The tree is at least 163 years old, and it stands sentry beside a gate of the rebuilt fortress, a lasting manifestation of hope and survival. 

The poem is from an unknown solider of World War I. 

Here's the surviving four-trunked chestnut tree of Iepre (also spelled Ypres):

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/19/ypres-chestnut-tree-battered-but-unbowed-by-wars-wins-belgian-award

The four-trunked chestnut tree stands sentry by the Menin Gate Memorial.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/menin-gate-memorial

The chestnut tree was not part of Sanctuary Wood, but the wood was an important sanctuary from German fire.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sanctuary-wood-museum