The Singing Tree

Nestled deep in the heart of the woods was a cedar tree.

The cedar was not just any tree, of course. For if this were an ordinary tree, it would not fill the air with the most beautiful song in the purple minutes of twilight.

Traders and merchants and royals and peasants came from far and wide, from kingdoms all across the realm, to be graced by its sweet singing.

The singing tree was a beacon of light amongst a sullen forest. Even its branches, green as a lifetime of dewy spring morns, outshone those of every tree in the woods. Its trunk was thick and sturdy, so that when the storm season swept in, it stood tall and fast. Its roots crawled deep into the rich soil beneath its feet and each day they drank their fill of fresh water.

Though the tree was beautiful and adored by all mankind, the trees in the grove were green with envy, their bark tough from the jagged edges of malice.

“Why should our companion receive such praise from the humans?” said a scraggly spruce with gangly limbs. “Why must it grow so vast, so strong, stealing the sunlight and the purest rainwater when it comes?”

“Indeed,” another agreed, this one a pine with flaking bark and sour spoiled sap. “So it can sing. What of it? Why should it be given such adoration, such privilege?” With a soft preening of its branches, it boasted its fine collection of pinecones. “Do you see? I grow hundreds of pinecones. I help grow the forest! Shouldn’t I be thanked?”

“And I!” a burly oak chimed in. “Look at all of the acorns on the forest floor. I feed the chipmunks and the squirrels, the jays and the insects, though my efforts are for nought!”

“It is unfair,” said the spruce.

“Unjust,” said the pine.

“Unacceptable,” said the oak.

Though as much as they bemoaned their unfortunate circumstance, their complaints fell on deaf ears. They did all their harshest gossiping during the brief time during which the woods were full of the cedar tree’s song. All who heard their griping were the trees themselves, as the only language they knew how to speak in was the one only trees spoke—the tenuous dialect of rustling leaves and creaking branches. 

Despite their efforts to keep their gossip contained to the time during which they could not be heard, on this day they were so absorbed in their blathering that they did not hear the song end.

The cedar tree heard everything, from their blatant reproach to their silver-tongued jags. It heard them make jest of his bark, his branches, the tone of his song. Teary sap began to roll from the cedar’s eyes, falling to the damp earth beneath it. 

Upon hearing his wispy sobs, the other trees halted their clamoring. Though the cedar tree knew his companions could hear him, his sobs grew in fervour. 

“Why do you weep, my friend?” inquired the spruce, as though he were truly a kind compatriot. 

The cedar’s cries sounded akin to a harsh and ebbing wind. His branches shook with the force of his sobs. Breeze whistled through his soft spines. 

Finally, he composed himself enough to speak. “I know how much you hate me. All three of you.”

If the spruce, the pine, and the oak could have blushed pink with embarrassment, they most certainly would have.

Then, the cedar began to plead: “Tell me what I can do to quell your loathing. Tell me and I will do it. I beseech you.”

A keen-eared blueberry bush by the river cried out in warning, but its exclamation drowned in the roaring of the eddying stream. The rabbits hopping in the clover field could sense the utter disarray of it all. The birds perched on branches flew from the grove to find purchase elsewhere. 

Meanwhile, the spruce, the pine, and the oak had been granted such an opportunity! While the cedar’s sobs grew louder, the spruce leaned in toward the other trees. 

“We can tell it to leave some water for us,” the oak said.

“Indeed,” replied the spruce. “Perhaps it will dry up.”

“We can ask it to stoop a little, so we can reach the golden rays of the sunlight,” suggested the pine. 

“Quite so,” snickered the spruce. “Perhaps its trunk will crack and snap in two.”

The pine and the oak exchanged an uneasy glance at the intentions of their friend. The two merely wanted an ounce of the cedar’s beauty and accolade. Surely none of them meant to kill the fretful thing.

Just then, the spruce seemed to be struck with an idea that was too good to share with the pine and the oak. It turned its branches toward the cedar and said, “Good friend, you are mistaken—we do not despise you so. Truly, we are in awe of your extraordinary song! Please, you must teach us a verse.”

The cedar’s branches sagged. It was mid-afternoon, and it could not sing if not beneath the twilit sky. The cedar felt tears beginning to spring forth once more. 

It whimpered. “I cannot sing again until dawn graces us tomorrow morn.”

The spruce hummed. “Then you must grant us each a minute of your song to sing before the sun rises. Then we shall not be so jealous.”

The cedar’s eyes tried and it nearly cried out with joy at the solution. For the cedar, like all of us, wanted to be loved. It was a lonely tree, despite its beauty, and it longed for the love of those like it—not the humans who poked and prodded and tore at its bark. So it was not a shock to any of the creatures in the forest when the cedar granted each tree—the spruce, the pine, and the oak—with a minute of its song.

The morning came and brought with it a vibrant indigo sky. Troupes of humans came to listen to the cedar’s song, but as the time came for it to sing, the full, dark voice of the spruce burst forth. For a full sixty seconds, the spruce brought the audience to tears as it sang of its wordless woe. Then sang the pine in a floating soprano, then the oak in deep, rumbling bass that filled the grove. 

By the time the cedar tree finally sang, the audience were pressing their hands to the branches and bark of the other trees. By the time the humans finished marveling over the trio, dawn had broken and the sun crested above the horizon.

When the cluster of humans left, the spruce turned to the cedar tree. “That was magnificent. Truly. We must do that again tomorrow.”

The cedar tree said nothing, but it was pleased that the other trees seemed happy. 

The next morning, and the next, and the one after that, the three trees sang, each for sixty seconds, before the cedar tree. Each day, the humans that visited were the same as the first. 

By the fourth day, the cedar tree found it difficult to begin singing, for it was tired all of a sudden. After the humans left on that day, the spruce turned to the cedar. 

“I cannot tell you how grateful I am for the piece of your song that you have given me,” it drawled, “but I cannot seem to dismiss the feeling that I am not saying all that I have to say. I wish to make the humans weep with joy and sorrow. Might I ask for five minutes of your song instead of one?”

A protest nearly broke free of the cedar tree’s throat, but it stopped to consider. Five minutes may gain it extra favour. After all, what difference did it make if they were all given a chance to sing? 

So, the cedar tree agreed. The next morning, the spruce, the pine, and the oak each sang five minutes of the cedar’s song. The cedar tree found that the humans were leaving earlier. They once would stay in the grove for the duration of the dawn just to hear the cedar tree sing. Now, they tended to leave up to ten minutes before the sun came up!

Still, the cedar said nothing. The spruce asked for more time every seven days. 

“Might we have ten minutes each instead of five? We have so much more to say. What can you say that you have not been saying for years?”

“Might we have twenty minutes each instead of ten? The humans adore our stories. Much more than yours, even!”

Amid the gradual shedding of its song, the cedar found itself losing its lushness. Its once kelly green dullened to a bog-like hue and twigs were breaking clean of its branches more and more. It was shorter now, bent over in mourning for its once-beautiful song. But the cedar’s sacrifice had blunted the sword of the trees’ ire, and it was ever-thankful for that, no matter how many times it could have sworn it heard its name spat from one of their mouths, or how many compliments were thinly-veiled threats.

“If they are happy, I am happy,” it would tell itself.

Until one day, the spruce leaned toward it.

“The others and I were thinking,” it said like a cat encircling a mouse, “we do have such lovely singing voices. We have drawn in crowds from far and wide. Everyone wants to hear our song. So, what if we were the only ones who sang from now on?”

The cedar was shocked. “Give you…give you all of my song?”

The spruce hummed in agreement. “It is a fair deal, no?”

The cedar was speechless. The song was a part of it, like its trunk or its branches or its roots. The cedar had spent so much time without its precious song, it had begun to forget what the song sounded like. 

The cedar looked upon the spruce, and then it realized:

Nothing it could do would ever gain the spruce’s affections or acceptance. It could uproot itself and perform cartwheels all around the grove. It could give them a song to sing indefinitely. It could continue losing branches and colour until it shriveled up and died. The three trees would still look upon the cedar with the same disdain as before. They were as sour as their sap. 

And after all, what good was a singing tree without its song?

So, resolutely, the cedar said, “No.”

The spruce was furious. It began to speak, but the cedar refused to be silent any longer.

“I gave each of you a fair portion of my song. I offered it without the expectation of anything in return. Yet you continued to ask for more. You used my generosity for your own selfish gain, and you altered and squandered it. Too many cooks make for spoiled broth, my friend. So I say this now: I will give you no more of my song and now, I shall take back every minute of it. Had you been gracious, I would have happily shared. You will take nothing more from me.”

The spruce shouted angrily at the cedar all night, but its cries fell upon deaf ears. The spruce bellowed all night, until the sun peeked just beneath the horizon and the sky was inked a rich plum, and the cedar’s song filled the forest, weaving in and out of trees. The song drowned the gripes of the spruce tree. 

The cedar had reclaimed its song, and forevermore, it filled the minutes of dawn with its loud and beautiful singing.