Hoping for Pirates

[wilomn]

I’ve watched these trees, both fully leaved and bare branch naked, for the last 15 years. Saplings then, the Sycamores have got to be pushing 80 feet now. You can’t even tell that two of the pines are missing unless you knew this place in the beginning. The weird Chinese Elm and its equally contorted partner never have seemed quite happy. The pines though, they had seemed well pleased from the very beginning.

Trees had been added from time to time. Whether in completion of some ancient (by todays zippity-quick standards) plan, or increased usage along with actually physically seeing the shade they produced in real time, seeing what area It actually covered in real life stereoscopic colour, not just on some salesman’s screen of what will be, I have no clue. I wonder, sometimes, if anyone does. Who would you ask? Other than the man who rides the lawnmower on Tuesdays, I’ve never seen anyone actually professionally affiliated actually there in person.

I do find it interesting though, that of the five original pine trees planted in so very straight a line so very many years ago, precisely eight feet ten inches from the chain link fence that which is without from that which is within, two of which remain, forever bent, trunks almost parallel to the ground, the inevitable someday swallowing of which by said will erase any evidence of proof conclusive that children ever played here, will someday be a secret lost in time.

I recall when those canted drunken bent but beautiful trunks were slender as a young woman’s wrist, supported by twin stakes of poplar driven deep in the ground stiff and upright as a new groom on his wedding night, the young trees secured firmly between their stalwart gaurdians by ribbons of brightly coloured plastic, orange and blue and green, ends tied securely to the stakes, middles keeping young bark straight and true as was their duty.

They watered then, or maybe they still do, but it was during the day back then that they did, watered, on a regular basis. The trees and grasses grew fast and tall, the brown dirt field quickly becoming carpeted in grass, supporting what would become gentle shade providing giants. All, that is, except for the three pines who survived the initial transition from life in a five gallon bucket to roots in the ground and nothing but blue sky above.

Their fate, simple though it be, was not to be the same as their xylum and phloem filled companions. A single great trunk, thrusting skyward, attracted, engorged by sun and sky, roots to match its branches bend for bend and twist for twist in both size and scope, nourishing, feeding, slaking the thirst of, its above ground counterpart; none of this was for them. No gazing endlessly at the sun, the moon or the stars.

A multi-lobed anemone fingered grasping pair of deciduons, resembling barely at all the bold phalluses that had become their taller straighter fellows, dreaming. Perhaps not of grandeur, but of well deserved appreciation. A gladness for the providing of shelter from the sun and the rain. An appreciation of the climbability. Which is what dashed dreams of hugeness and cloud brushing in the beginning. For those so inclined, the sharing of the joy of the endless ocean , wave upon endless wave, heard on breeze blown needles and the occasional creak or crack of branch or bough sighing on invisible currents large and small, ceaseless or almost so, never completely still. That, maybe.

It’s all moot now anyway. Almost fifteen years it’s been since those kids bent those trees and at least a decade since the big storm took out the third missing pine, tore it out roots and all with winds neither gentle nor soft. I suppose it doesn’t really matter if anyone knows or remembers.

The trees can’t tell us, people come and go, taking and leaving as they do. Leaving memories and tennis balls looking for Frisbees to compare stories about longest flights and drooliest fetches, flattened footballs and the occasional rope chew; taking with them though, taking with them, if they’re lucky, memories. Good ones. Too new to be treasures yet, too many to keep them all. Placing blame for not knowing or forgetting is an exercise in futility as a rule.

But, in time, a few, if you’re lucky, will become gems that rightfully belong in a pirate’s chest of treasures, plunder and bounty of what will, in a few blinks of the eye have become the long ago, when those who are now sorely missed are vibrant and beautiful. And alive. Mostly that. Alive.

Not many will know the story of how the pines were bent. Not that it’s important, other than to itself. We should all be important to ourself, ourselves, to have a story and to not forget it, to see the little stories happening around us. Taking all those little stories and weaving out of them our lives, it’s what we do. If luck has smiled upon us.

Others know these things, these stories. I don’t know if they know they do, but it’s true nonetheless. I was hardly alone, we were hardly alone, except on very foggy or rainy days- then we were occasionally alone- we were not even remotely the sole witnesses to the history of the bent pines. Do others know they know these stories? Mostly I think they don’t, but deep down I hope they do, that someday they’ll find them, like a treasured childhood book stumbled upon in a favourite grandparent’s attic.

You see, I guess the message I’m kind of trying to get out here is that all stories, every THING’S story, is important. That’s important.

I’m wondering what stories have never been shared, what histories lost, triumphs uncelebrated, tragedies unlamented, simply because no one realized they were what they were, stories unshared, stored away in minds unknowing, treasures waiting to be unearthed, hiding within us all, hoping for pirates.

[JLC]

You sure do have a way...of making people think.

Beautifully written, my friend.

[wilomn]

Any Pirate's Booty out there waiting for an audience?