The Tree

There is a tree, bare and stretching up into a grey sky, clouds racing overhead. The earth around it is brown and empty, but both the tree and the earth are a deep rich brown of expectancy and potential and life. They are wet, not dried and dusty and dead. 

A rusty red squirrel comes to the tree and climbs it, leaping around and flicking its tail as it dances and dances. Then a blackbird lands on a branch, singing its pure and beautiful song. Red and black, colours of death and renewal. Soon other birds join, the sound of feathers beating air swells, and many squirrels dance their ecstatic dance around the tree, so full of joy. 

A great chorus swells and the clouds begin to part, blue sky breaking through. All over the branches, now adorned with birds and squirrels, a new shade appears. First the reddy-brown of fresh buds and with a slow and completely inexorable power, the pop of thousands of unfurling, soft and tender green leaves. 

The tree is draped, festooned in the yellowy-green leaves of new life, all of the promise of spring. The squirrels stop their dance to witness and the birds quieten so that they can hear the song of the tree. 

When we sit with death and celebrate it, we help to keep the cycle turning.

© Elena Tornberg-Lennox 2022