Where Roots Once Hummed

We are not all the same. In my youth, I was one among many: all different sizes, shapes and textures loving and breathing, each wonderful in its own way. As we sprang up, some were lost, but many grew sturdy and strong.

Even though I’ve never seen the ocean, travellers passing through described it. I imagined us to be a living ocean of green as far as the eye could see. The sun filtered through layers of leaves, warming me and giving me energy to grow. I felt my roots reaching into rich, dark soil, drinking deep, while slender threads of fungi laced through the earth at my feet — an intricate network carrying news from tree to tree. My many arms were attached to my trunk, and my bark was etched with life experience — some said if you looked closely enough you could make out something like a face.

Beneath my base the network spread far and wide letting me send messages to my companions: warnings of storms, beetle infestations, and drought creeping in from the south. Stored in our rings, messages moved more slowly than a heartbeat yet were strong enough to help us prepare for the tough times. For friends we sent water in times of distress; for foes we produced a bitter sap.

Yet some enemies we could not overcome. We could not stop the careless feet that trampled across our beds with no regard for preserving what we held dear. No amount of rain could heal the scars they left behind.

Each year I stored memories inside my rings. Woodpeckers carved homes in my limbs; moth caterpillars uncurled in the summer shade. As my branches lifted toward the sky, I sheltered jays, squirrels, and the small brown mice that secretly buried acorns beneath my roots.

Spring was a season of hope and renewal when my flowers fed bees and hoverflies. Then sliding into autumn, my seeds spun out like tiny helicopters landing across the grass. Before long, I grew tall and wide; heart-shaped at the base, offering stability as the seasons changed. I held on to November, one of the last to shed my burnished leaves. Their bright colours turned into muddy heaps until they were blown away by harsh winter winds which flayed my bark and left me stark and silently shivering upon an earth that was cold and unyielding.

Then I retreated ever more into a world of memories: the lovers who’d engraved initials into my bark and vowed undying love. Some returned later with their children, lifting them high in the air, rejoicing at what life had brought them. Others leaned against me asking questions I could not answer, and seeking comfort which I gave. Solace for the lonely.

But time is patient, and so is loss.

One by one, the forest that held me was pared back, swallowed by a human tide that demanded an endless supply of wood and open spaces.

Many times I had watched in fear as men came with saws and axes. First, they took the beeches near the brook, then the row of birches along the ridge. The ashes would be turned into furniture I never got to see. Later they felled the tall oaks for ships and cut hazel thickets for fences. The spruces, pines and firs were cut for pulping. Somehow, I was left alone in my hollow. The absence of friends left a hole, but I persevered. Where roots once hummed, silence stretched. As the trees toppled, I felt their final signals rushing through the soil: sharp flares of fear. Once the high-pitched clicks abated, an unnatural stillness fell as they lay waiting to be carted away from a ground that would soon forget all they had given.

Once the forest had been scraped away, I spent decades living at the edge of fields and meadows. I learned the new language of wind scouring open hills, of sheep nibbling grass, of tractors rumbling where deer had once stepped light-footed. As my wood strengthened against gales, I widened my branches to catch light no longer filtered through a canopy. The world around me had changed yet I retained the memories of what had been.

By the time the last oak fell, I stood alone in a gap between hills — a single sycamore rising to the sky, never thinking I too would have to face the sharp breath of change. Nearby, sheep grazed where bluebells had once bloomed. My canopy stretched wide, catching every storm; my roots gripped soil made shallow by ploughing. Still, I endured.

Somehow in my solitude, I had become the symbol of something unique. Something inviolate.

For decades, I’d grown used to generations of walkers coming to rest in my shade. Artists sketched me, couples made promises beneath my boughs, the ashes of loved ones were scattered at my feet. Photographers waited hours just to capture a hint of mist curling around my trunk. People saw me as a landmark, a sentinel between two worlds: the wild that once was, and the fragile beauty of the present.

At dusk, when the air cooled and the scent of heather drifted down from the meadows, I could almost hear the old forest breathing. I remembered the chatter of rooks, the murmur of deer, the stirring of my neighbours. I recalled the roots that had once brushed mine beneath the soil, sharing strength in understanding. Though their trunks were long gone, I felt echoes — fragments of a distant chorus, still lingering .

I continued to give shelter to whatever sought me. Tawny owls claimed the cavities in my trunk; robins perched on low branches, singing through the winter gloom. Storms split some of my limbs, yet even the fallen boughs nursed a moss that thrived in softened wood. A whole world lived within my bark: ants tending aphids, spiders spinning lattices that caught the mist like strings of pearls. My body acted as a host to many, a scaffold holding life together.

Then, one blustery night when a treacherous wind howled, three men arrived, restless and out to prove something. One of them carried a chainsaw, one a cell phone for filming, another watched from the sidelines. Their laughter was scornful, their words jarring, breath soured by drink and resentment.

“No one sees us,” one grumbled, “but they see that tree. Time to give them something to really look at!”

There was a shuddering as my fibres snapped at the bite of steel. Like being struck by a hundred thunderbolts, my rings caved in and screamed a silent scream — centuries of wind, frost, drought, and spring renewal split open one by one and exposed to the night air. There were no trees to hear my cries as my sap bled out into the grass. In minutes, my once splendid crown lay sprawled across the earth, branches still heavy with rain. The man filming the spectacle wore a grin of lopsided triumph on his face. Afterwards, he cut a wedge from my trunk and held it up as a trophy.

When dawn came, people gathered around a heart-shaped stump. The air was palpable with grief. People clung together unable to understand how something so rooted was no more. Men in high-vis jackets carefully traced the rings of my abandoned trunk which had counted storms, plagues, wars, the flow of underground streams, famines, and the heat of sultry summer days. They spoke softly, as though in the presence of a revered elder.

Saplings were taken from my fallen branches in the hope that new life might spring from what had been destroyed. Birds began to perch on my stump, pecking at lichen colonising on the surface. Pools of rain had collected in grooves, reflecting sky and cloud. I watched it all, the only remnant of a once proud forest.

Strangely, a curious though not unwelcome commotion has surrounded my “demise.” Humans regularly come to pay homage holding one another and weeping openly at my plight. As if they’ve lost a loved one. A while back, some friends of the earth gathered and solemnly fixed a plaque to my stump. Then fencing was placed around me.

At night, when I’m alone, I still hear the murderous whine of the chainsaw hacking at my parts — yet I also feel the stirring of something new. From my base, a dozen daring shoots have emerged, slim and determined, their leaves reaching towards the sky — proof that even the felled can rise again.