LANGUAGE OF THE TREES

 

For years on my morning walks I tried unsuccessfully to have a conversation with the trees.

Wondering all these years why they would not talk with me.

I asked them simple questions like:

Are you ever jealous of the butterflies or the bees?

Have you ever felt superior and looked down on the weaker, smaller trees?

I asked them as they stood in the same place every day:

Do you ever want to move around…to sing or dance or play?

I asked them this question…which I now know the trees thought quite odd:

Do all the different trees pray to different Gods?

Have you ever been at war with one another”

Are there any trees you fear?

Through the years all my questions have fallen on deaf ears.

Until the other morning when my mind made this suggestion:

Perhaps the reason they never talk to me is…I’ve been asking the wrong questions!

Jealously, prejudiced, God, war, fear…

These are the words of which my questions all consist.

I was using words and concepts that in the language of the trees do not exist.

 

Now when I say good morning and give a hug to any tree

I find with this simple gesture they’re happy to talk to me.

We talk a lot about nature. I ask them about all the things they love,

I’m always interested in what it’s like to see the world from up above.

They’ve helped me identify the birds, the flowers the stars 

and all the different voices of nature that surround them.

And every tree is happy to introduce me to

all the different trees around them.

I’ve discovered trees are great conversationalists

as I stand amidst their friends and flowers….

and I’ve come to wish the words that do not exist in the language of the trees…

did not exist in ours.