Love Letter to a Tree

Standing tall, limbs so high off the ground, impossible to see from below, a legion of Sequoias are poised in eternal solute. Their rust-red skin is rough-yet soft, living- yet still, and incomprehensibly soothing in a way that takes me back. Closing my eyes, I can almost hear a song, soft vibrations, earth-deep. How many millenia have they bared witness to? Floods, earthquakes, fires, births, deaths- how many souls have they shared the earth with? 

If you had a face, you would have clear, hazel green eyes, sharp with knowledge and grandfatherly kind; your shape, however, would be youthful, skin as vibrant as a sapling. You would not share a smile- not because you are prideful, but because you take everything in on a grander scale than I can imagine. You are noble and fair, calm and whole. And you are humming something so quietly, I can’t make it out. What are you trying to tell me?

“Hello, old friend,” I greet, hand lightly pressed to your body. 

For a time, I am connected through this touch. For a time, I remember the place where ancestor’s meet. 

***

Overlooking a valley of evergreens, cliff-side fig trees wave their branches in invitation. “Come here! All are welcome,” they say. Their fruit is nectar sweet and contentedly shared with deer passing through- a communal feast. Peach-soft caterpillars strut their jubilant colors, azure, orange, yellow, and cherry red. I join in as they wiggle and dance on the leaves. Their festivities carry well into twilight, long after I’m taken away.

Evenings spent atop a chilled plastic car, the kind made by Little Tikes with a red body and yellow roof. Crickets chirp, frogs ribbit, scorpions click, and bat wings flutter, drawn to a domestic glow. Above, stars speckle the sky- more than can be counted. I listen to the symphony as it plays on through the night.

"Put your shoes on, we got to go."

It is midnight. The engine hums as dark shadows sway by. Gliding past the car window, a star-shaped moose crashes down, its face turned to the heavens as if to say goodbye. It leaps back up into the dark, a desperate attempt to return to its homeland in the sky before gravity embraces it once more. My hands press to the window, naively hoping to comfort the moose as it dives back down. This moment--this-- is where ancestors meet.

Where cabbages, zucchini, and carrots are cradled by a nest of brown pine needles, I can almost hear, “Don’t go too far, child. There’s rattlesnakes about.” The vegetables are lush and bountifully grown by caring hands- ones wrinkled and veined, always extending out with a freshly picked green onion. There used to be sheep and chickens as well, but that was before the flock started disappearing along with the mountain lion’s banshee scream-- before those hands were gone. 

Orange fungus shelves embrace redwood sentinels. These vibrant platforms are curiously stacked- an apartment complex with a scenic view. It looks so cozy that I wish I could live there too. But for who? Spirits? Someone. Surely someone. 

I sit where soft sunlight pierces through evergreen shade. Helicopter seeds spiral as they rain down- too gentle to make a sound as they settle on the ground. I open my mouth and the shadows taste sweet. Isn’t that strange? How can umber have a taste? There were no questions then. 

Soul-white snow piles bank the curving road and beyond, there is nothing but a veiled precipice. The car is wrapped around a deer sign and breathing its last sigh. Next to it, small hands are squeezed tightly, a treacherous lifeline keeping me and my brothers stable until we slip on the ghost ice. We topple down, feet in the bitter air, and we spin out just like the cars, circling, screeching, ball-dancing. It’s scary because it’s pitch black, because there is nowhere to go. It’s calming because I can hear a humming under our own breathing, because I can see them standing all around us. I know they are there and we are safe.

“Grandpa, do you believe in ghosts?”

“Ghosts?” He scratches under his brown leather headband, right where he placed the daffodils I and my brothers gave him. “I don’t know about ghosts. But, spirits, yes. There is a place where magic exists. Where water flows up instead of down. And when you are there, you know right away you are home. You know what that place is called?”

“No. What is it?” 

“Maui,” he says fondly. “Remember that that is your home.” 

***

I open my eyes and silently thank you. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this place.

I walk around for a bit longer. There is the mammoth stump, big enough to fit fifty people on, once a stage for dancing. I am sad to see your brethren in such a state, but I can’t help but wonder, as I stand on top of it, how many lives are embedded in its tree rings. Near the center, am I touching one of my grandmas, possibly writing in a green Ireland landscape? And here, great grandma is participating in a Paseo, wearing a colorful floral dress. Another step, and there is grandpa Alexander, aboard a Portuguese ship, ready to call another land his home. And there is grandpa Maurisio sheltering in a banana leaf hut, waiting for a Vasayan storm to pass, not yet dreaming of a Californian farm town. Near the edge, I see great grandma Darlene, again, with her green onions. And at last there’s a young grandpa Aliki, deep within a tropical forest, gazing in fascination at the waters moving up instead of down. Excitement boiling over, he hops around laughing. 

“I’m here, grandpa. I’m home.”

When I am older and there are little ones running about, I will remember what my grandpa told me. And if one asks me if I believe in ghosts, instead of telling them about Maui, I will tell them about you. 

I will say, “I don’t know about ghosts. But, spirits, yes. There is a place in California. In the middle of the forests, standing tall, limbs so high off the ground, impossible to see from below, a legion of Sequoias are poised in eternal solute…”

Maybe, then, you will smile.