Speaking With Trees

A free short story about breaking and healing...and a tree with something to say.

A note before I let you read: It’s been a while since I posted, (I feel I say this sentence more than any other!) but I promise I’ve been writing a lot - poems, essays and short stories for my Master of Creatvie Writing; finishing the final draft of my new manuscript; editing the novel coming out next year with 12 Willows Press, and contributions to the Lay It On the Line collab (with

Amanda C. Sandos

.

Bee Lilyjones

,

Julie Snider

,

Stacy Boone

.

Julia Adzuki

and

Yasmin Chopin

).

Over these past few months, something has shifted in my writing—a kind of breaking open. I’ve found myself touching the raw nerves more often, and sharing the beauty and pain I find there. I’ve leaned into a vulnerability I used to shy away from. And I think it’s making the work more honest, more free, more me.

So in celebration of that shift, I thought I’d share this story with the world—or at least, with those of you who follow this space. So grab a cuppa, hug a tree, and come bathe in the forest for a little while.

---

They are sitting in a circle, knees not touching, eyes avoiding contact. Their arms and heads are curled in, like seedlings waiting for the sun to coax them out of their husks. But these people, gathered in a manufactured clearing, are not buried in darkness; they are bathed in light because we trees can no longer stretch our canopy to protect them. The rays pour onto their craned necks as they listen to Jude, who brings these people here to connect with us, every week.

They don’t realise they’ve already made a connection. Beneath the blades of grass tickling their ankles lies a web of roots. Our roots. We may have vanished from human sight in this oddly orderly part of the park, but below ground, we are still there. Stretching out. Reaching for each other across the clearing. Keeping our community connected, and when the humans sit, as they do now, connecting with them too. Holding them in our web of roots like a cradle, our swaying leaves acting as our voice.

But like the too-tired babies pushed around the park by too-tired mothers, the humans look for distractions, stubbornly refusing to let peace descend. Too wired to welcome it. A woman pulls out a phone to take photos of the beautiful mandala Jude made with our fallen leaves. Jude gently asks her to put the phone in the shoebox she is passing around the circle. Jude tells the group that for the next twenty minutes, they are stars in the nature documentary, not viewers.

Phones away, the humans are left to interact with what is around them. One drums his fingers on the ground, sending a message through our network. Another blows a dandelion clock, spreading seeds to places they couldn’t have reached without the human’s help. A woman takes a leaf from the mandala and crushes it between her fingers, releasing a smell that makes their shoulders drop. Each one of them breathes deeper, slower. We can feel the vibrations in the ground change. But the humans don’t notice.

They don’t feel it yet—the sense of belonging here. They are still thinking of this as a place they run through with their headphones in, or use as a pretty background for a selfie. We do our best when they pass through to interact with them, as much for our good as theirs. We miss them. Some of us get a little desperate. A gum tree on the opposite side of the clearing sways just enough for her canopy to reveal the unsuspecting koala napping in that particularly lonely tree. It’s a cheap trick, in my opinion. But it doesn’t work anyway. Humans rarely look up these days. Perhaps I’m just jealous of her foliage. I’m not looking my best these days. I’ve had a lot of branches removed—most of them, actually. Dangerous limbs, dangerous to humans at least.

Jude hugged me when the man with the chainsaw had left. She stroked the exposed wood, counted my newly revealed rings, and told me I was still beautiful. I can still feel the dampness on my trunk where her tears soaked through my bark, near where my lowest branch had been—now ground down to a stump.

Jude is talking to the circle again. We trees quiet our canopy, so she doesn’t need to shout. And so we can hear. We enjoy this part, where the humans take their turn greeting the forest and telling us why they are here. We are thirsty for their stories, parched for connection. They talk about loneliness and aging and worries about the changing climate. This is how humans stretch out their roots, looking for connection—by telling stories. We gladly soak up these stories through the roots beneath them, and store them in our wood, allowing the stories to become part of us. We like to hear we aren’t so different; many of the things that trouble them trouble us too.

Today we listen and nod our branches, pushing out just a few more of the compounds we know heal the humans, as we feel their tears slightly moisten the air. Then it is the last human’s turn. She introduces herself as Beth. But the wind changes, and no more of her words reach me. I strain to listen, but there is no sound, and then I realise she isn’t talking. Jude allows the silence to continue. The magpie respectfully halts his song. The scuttling beetles even pause their busy legs. Then Beth says three words that feel like an echo of my own thoughts. I am broken. The other humans don’t respond, and we stay quiet. Beth’s words are given space to land, thudding gently into the clearing.

After a respectful time, the forest reanimates. We know the next stage, and excitement is building. The humans will wander among us, allowing themselves to be led to a tree that calls them, and then... they will talk to us. I used to look forward to it, but in my current state, I don’t offer as much shade as I used to; the humans pass me by.

So I am not surprised when the people scatter to sit with my friends, leaving me alone. I wait to hear the chatter that will spread through the network later, as the trees share all they have heard. If I stay still, I may even overhear some of the stories now. (What tree doesn’t eavesdrop, after all?)

Then a voice startles me. “Hello tree,” it says awkwardly and loudly—perhaps to prove to the others she is doing what’s expected of her, or to backtrack on her own words. “I’m Beth.”

At first, I don’t think she is talking to me. Why, on a hot day, would she choose a barren banksia to speak to when there is a lush gum tree close by with a koala in her boughs? But then I feel her hand on my bark. It is unexpected but longed-for, and it makes me shiver. My branches shower down some overdue leaves I should have released earlier but kept out of vanity.

“Oh,” Beth says softly. “I hope I didn’t make that happen. I should have asked first, I suppose, if it was OK to touch you. I’m sorry. I’m always getting things wrong—I've never done this before, so...”

I try to settle my branches. It’s difficult; her energy is bouncy, like a hare on edge, not sure which direction to spring. Ready to leap at the slightest sound. I remain still, exhaling. Beth does the same. I feel her pulse through her fingertips, her hand still on my trunk. It is slowing from a canter to a trot.

“I am supposed to look you up and down. Slowly,” she says apologetically. Her hand retreats, my bark retaining some of the heat and moisture from her touch. She is an inextricable part of me now—particles of her already seeping into me, particles that will return to the earth with me and become something new. A companion on my journey. After a little while, she adds, “It feels a bit voyeuristic. Like what the boys used to do when I lined up outside the nightclub with my mates,” she laughs. It’s an uncertain laugh, one that has grown accustomed to feeling unwelcome. “That was a long time ago though.”

“You are still a sapling,” I tell her. I want her to stay and keep talking to me, so I move my canopy slightly, trying to dislodge a butterfly resting on one of my leaves. But it doesn’t budge. It doesn’t matter—Beth keeps talking to me anyway.

“I’m forty-five now,” she says, her voice travelling from my highest branches to where I meet the ground. “But I feel about sixty. That’s why I’m here. ...chronic pain. The doctor has prescribed Forest Therapy. It’s low impact, I suppose, and he tells me the chemicals trees release—phytoncides, I think they’re called—are good for me....” There is a pause. Her voice disappears but her thoughts don’t. So many thoughts. They swarm around her like mosquitoes, buzzing and threatening to bite, refusing to go away. I wait. “…for my mental health.”

I feel her weight press on my trunk. I absorb it. She slides down between two raised roots of mine. I move my branches a little to give her what shade I can, releasing the healing phytoncides she clearly needs. Her shoulders droop further down my trunk. Her feet tuck up close to her body. She idly places her hands at her sides and scoops up some of the rich, mulchy soil that has gathered at my base. She lets it fall through her fingers, releasing its earthy smell and displacing a few beetles that had been sleeping. I invite the beetles to nestle in my bark, which they do.

The wind rolls over the canopy, breaking on each of my neighbours. When it reaches me, I let it pass through my branches. Some of the trees next to me lose a few leaves, which drift over to Beth’s feet.

“I always loved the wind when I was younger,” Beth says as she picks up one of the leaves. “It always felt like it would bring something new, that it would blow something magical into my path. Occasionally there was something scary on the news, like a roof coming off, but it was rare. Rare enough not to scare me.”

The butterfly wakes, flitting past one of my remaining branches—too high up for Beth to see. Last summer there were so few, but with all the rain this year, more have arrived. It makes me glad.

“Now I’m scared of the wind, the rain, the sun—everything. There’s always some crisis, some disaster. Much worse than a roof being blown away. It fills up my news feed; there are special reports on television. There’s no escape. It’s overwhelming.” Beth looks up. She breathes in and holds it as she sees the butterfly riding the twirling breeze down towards her. She instinctively reaches into her pocket, then remembers. She looks back up. “Today is the longest I’ve gone without checking my phone and I’m ashamed to say, I miss it. I don’t think I could give it up. I’d feel so… alone.”

“You are looking for connectionThere’s no shame in that. We all need to be part of a community, Beth—it’s how we survive. When my branches were cut, my community felt my distress and sent me nutrients to heal. Perhaps you just need to find the right community. One that will make you feel better, not scared.”

“I can’t remember the last time I saw a butterfly,” Beth says quietly, as though worried her voice will scare it away. The butterfly continues to flutter and dance around, glad to have an appreciative audience.

“The last time you saw a butterfly was probably the last time you stayed still long enough to notice one. When was that?” I ask.

“I haven’t sat like this, doing nothing, for a very long time,” Beth says with a sigh.

“You aren’t doing nothing. You are breathing and seeing and touching and smelling. You are being.”

"I guess I am doing something. I’m talking to you,” she says, with a light laugh. “I’ve never spoken to a tree before... but, somehow, it feels easier than talking to people. I can just be myself.”

“I’ve spoken to many humans,” I tell her. “Some knew I was speaking, others didn’t. All they heard was my leaves rustling or my branches creaking. But I enjoyed it—and so did they, I think, just the same.”

“What would your voice sound like, if you had one?” Beth asks. “In my head, while I’m imagining what you are saying back to me, you sound just like me. You have my voice.”

A comfortable lull descends in the forest. It is quiet enough for me to hear the plants talking to each other—a sound even we trees very rarely detect. Then the silence is filled with birdsong. The magpie has decided that enough time has passed and Beth is now ready to hear his tune. I would never tell the other birds, but the magpie’s song is one of my favourites. He sings for no other reason than the joy of it, and that joy can be felt in every note that leaves his throat. There is a low rumbling from the creek on the far side of the forest, interrupted every so often by scratching in the undergrowth—the lizards looking for a snack.

I feel Beth’s thoughts slow—no longer like mosquitoes, more like lazy bees making their way from flower to flower, allowing pollen to gather on their legs and slow them even further. Beth sighs, her breath causing an old cobweb that a spider has woven between my remaining branches to move ever so slightly, pushing it into the sun just enough for Beth to notice.

“Poor spider, spending all that time, and her web has ripped,” Beth says.

“Oh, don’t feel so bad for her. She’s caught many an unsuspecting fly in that web over the months. And now she can enjoy being creative and make a new one somewhere else, where she can feast on new prey.”

“Can I tell you a secret?” Beth whispers.

“I can’t promise to keep it,” I chuckle – something I’ve learned from the humans – dislodging a few more leaves. There are so few left now that I am almost bare. One lands near Beth, and she idly twiddles it between her fingers.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Beth says. Her voice quietens. “I’m going to leave before the tea is served.”

“That is a shame—you’ll miss the best part,” I tell her honestly. The tea ceremony is when the humans share the things they’ve noticed while they’ve sat with us. Tea is poured for everyone, even us trees, with a cup tipped into the soil to be soaked up along with the humans’ stories of reconnection.

“I know I should stay to get the full experience, as Jude put it, but the thought of sitting next to someone and sharing…” She pauses.

“Speaking to trees is easy. People, not so much. I post things on social media, of course. But that’s different. We’re all on the stage and there’s no one in the audience. So there’s no connection. Not a real one anyway.”

“This is real—the ground you are sitting on, the rock digging into your thigh,” I tell her. “You are part of this community. The ant crawling over your foot to get to the berry my neighbour dropped. The magpie warbling to tell others you are here. The lizard flicking his tongue out, tasting you in the air. You are connected to all of us right now.” I want to ground her. I want to wrap my roots around her and plant her in the soil.

She is quiet. I feel the pressure on my trunk ease slightly with each inhale, and increase with each deep exhale.

“I see all these photos of my friends. Their lives all look so complete. The new job. The happy teenager. The perfect, smiling partner in front of the perfect sunset. And I know, really, it’s an illusion. I’m not seeing the complete picture. I’m not seeing the photo of long hours in the office, or their teenager not looking up from their phone for hours. Or the storm that soaked them straight after they snapped that perfect sunset. But I have to play along. I have to pretend too; I can’t ruin the trick. I can’t show them I’m broken.” I taste the salt of the tear that lands on one of my exposed roots. I start to move my lower branches to hold her, then remember they aren’t there anymore.

“All things in nature are broken, Beth, even humans. How could we possibly live without accumulating some fractures along the way? Living things grow, and growth can only happen when old things are left behind. Like snakes shedding their skin, or a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon. Or old trees dying and breaking down into the soil, so new trees can grow even stronger. You don’t need to hide your brokenness. It just proves you are living life, and experiencing all of the sunsets and storms it brings.”

Beth’s weight leaves me, and she puts her arms around my trunk. She feels the serrated edges of my exposed wood where the saw bit into me. It hurt at the time, as change often does. But now I enjoy feeling this new part of myself—the sensation of air on wood that has never been exposed. A human traces her fingers in ever-decreasing circles as she counts the rings of time embedded in the stump that remains.

“How have you survived so long?” she asks. “How have you withstood all the storms and fires that must have occurred over all those years?”

“I’ve let myself change. I’ve allowed the hurricane to sway me, knowing that if I stayed rigid, it would snap me in two. I’ve grown my bark thick because I can’t stop the fire from reaching me, but I can stop it from burning me to my core. I’ve put down deeper roots when water has been in short supply—I haven’t just waited for the rain to save me. And I’ve always remembered that the things that come along and change me will change too.”

“Thank you,” she whispers. Her breath feels like a light breeze, refreshing and welcome. “I hope I get to see you again,” she says, though her tone makes me think she doesn’t believe she will. She rests her cheek against my trunk and wraps her arms around me, the way I see humans do—closing the gap between them for support, holding together each other’s broken parts. Her finger passes over the edge of the chainsawed nub and finds something unfamiliar. Perhaps some of my bark has flaked away, exposing a new part of me to the elements and to Beth’s gentle, probing touch. It makes me shudder, but not from pain. It’s the unexpectedness, the newness. The realisation that someone has discovered a part of me I didn’t know existed.

Beth steps around me, carefully stepping between my roots, unaware that my network of roots buried underground—the part of me she cannot see—is supporting her weight. She doesn’t realise that as she stands there holding me, I am actually the one doing the holding. It makes me feel stronger to carry her. It reminds me of what I can sustain. She is behind me, facing the clearing. As her fingers trace over this new discovery, I begin to form an idea of what is there, to feel possibility bloom. But then we are interrupted.

“Beth,” I hear Jude say quietly. Beth jumps, as though she were a child caught hiding. I feel her head move to the side of me, her cheek still pressed to my trunk as she peers out at Jude. Jude is standing respectfully between my two front roots, close enough to startle a beetle who scuttles inside me. “I thought we’d lost you. I gave the call a little while ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Beth replies timidly, still holding my trunk, still not ready to let me go. “Has that been twenty minutes?”

“Don’t worry, I’m just glad to see you’ve met a dear friend of mine. I’m not surprised you were distracted. She’s a talker, this one,” Jude says, kindness softening her words as she strokes my bark. “I will be very sad to see her go.”

“Go?” Beth’s touch turns into a grip. I feel some of my bark dislodge; specks of me now travel with Beth under her fingernails.

“They’ve cut her back too far. I don’t think she’s going to survive,” Jude says as she steps closer until I can feel her breath against my trunk. “I’ve been watching her since she was pruned. She’s gotten weaker and weaker.” There is resignation in Jude’s voice, which doesn’t surprise me. She sees my decay as the end, not just a phase in the cycle. Right now, she thinks when I disappear from sight, her relationship with me will disappear too. But after I am gone, she will discover we are still connected. When she tells the other humans about me—about the times we spoke—she will smile. When she sees the sunlight bringing the patches of ground to life where I once stood, she will know that it’s my remains, buried deep in the soil, that are nourishing the saplings and plants. My absence will make me even more present.

“I’m just about to do the tea ceremony,” Jude says, her arms now hugging me. “You’re welcome to share what you’ve noticed while you’ve sat with this old girl.”

“Oh.” Beth’s weight shifts, as though she is barely touching the ground—a hare ready to spring away again. One tentative foot touches down to my left while the other stays back, her hands still gripping my bark as though she’s deciding which way to bolt. “It’s just that I wasn’t going to come along to the ceremony. I’m not good at talking to people, especially strangers.”

“There’s no pressure, Beth. You don’t have to speak in the circle, but you may enjoy hearing what others have observed during their tree talks. You could even just take the time to reflect in your own mind on what you’ve noticed today.”

“Actually...” Beth’s voice is so cautious I think she will abandon the rest of the sentence. “There is something I would like to share. With you. You seem to have a connection to this tree, and you seem so sad... I’d like you to know.”

Beth retreats behind me, and I feel Jude follow, both women carefully placing their feet so as not to step on my exposed roots. I feel Beth’s hand on that same spot—this new place—mapping out a part of me I don’t even know yet. But then Jude’s hand tenderly follows Beth’s path, passing over it again and again until it finally feels like part of me.

“It’s a new shoot,” Jude whispers.

“She’s growing back, isn’t she?” Beth says. I feel her full weight press down on the soil through her two firmly planted feet, as though she is growing down through the earth to meet me.

“I hadn’t noticed it,” Jude says apologetically as she strokes my bark, letting her fingertips catch on my ridges. “I’ve only seen her from the clearing side. I haven’t looked at her from this angle.” She hugs my trunk with one arm, her other arm reaching out to Beth. “Thank you, Beth. If it’s okay with you, I’d love to share this story with the others—unless you want to tell them yourself?”

“Well, perhaps I could stay for just one cup,” Beth replies, her voice as steady as her feet.

They slowly let me go, and I feel the pressure on my roots ease and fade as they walk back towards the clearing to rejoin the circle, which is stronger now. Knees touching, heads held high so eyes can meet eyes. There is gentle chatter—the way birds sound when telling each other about a new source of food. Our network is happily chattering too, sharing the stories the humans have told us, passing them around like a nourishing snack. I patiently listen. I have plenty of time to tell my story. There is no rush.

An intense aroma of pine needles fills the air. The network sends support to the pines among us. The scent, we know, stirs something deeper in them—like an elderly human remembering the smell of their mother.

Then, Beth, Jude, and the other humans are drinking. And then so am I. Beth has poured some tea on the soil. I taste it, cool and smooth, as it works its way through my spindly roots that spread out beneath Beth. I soak up her thank you along with the liquid. Then she and I drink together, letting it flow into the new shoots emerging from our broken parts.