Forest Talk
I’m surrounded by the riot of colour that fall’s death throes bring.
The trees catch fire and die in flashes of orange, yellow and red. It makes summer seem boring. There’s a feeling to fall like time’s running out. The light panic of dying.
I live here in the trees. I’m a wood nymph. Tiny, camouflaged and invisible to most human eyes. I revel in my attachment to the woods. I’m familiar with all of the other nymphs around me. We chatter across the gulfs to each other like squirrels. We can touch each other if the branches of our trees rub together.
And the trees themselves. They think such slow, comforting thoughts. I nestle in the elbowed creases of their forks and listen to the eddied whorls of their notions. Each thought is a concept that takes years to form, adding another ring to the inside. I have to pay attention to understand it because it forms so quietly and takes so long.
Each tree is different. Each nymph is different also. For instance, Loveleaf-To-My-Left, the nymph next to me, is allergic to pollen, female, a darker green and much longer than me.
I have a name for myself, taken from my tree’s thoughts. It is a long name. A concept from when my tree and I were young together and the future was endless. It is a name of hope and challenge.
Loveleaf-To-My-Left calls me Underskin-Touchbranch-Reacher. She has a name for herself, based on the ridges of her tree’s bark. We name each other. We name ourselves. The names we give ourselves are secret. The names we give each other we repeat over and over to the forest when we talk.
Right now, the wind is playing with the weakened leaf stems, plucking them off one by one. My skin is peeling and my hair in falling out. Soon, I will go blind and lie lifeless in the embrace of a knothole in the trunk.
The tree and I will lie still through winter and dream of spring.
tags
The trees catch fire and die in flashes of orange, yellow and red. It makes summer seem boring. There’s a feeling to fall like time’s running out. The light panic of dying.
I live here in the trees. I’m a wood nymph. Tiny, camouflaged and invisible to most human eyes. I revel in my attachment to the woods. I’m familiar with all of the other nymphs around me. We chatter across the gulfs to each other like squirrels. We can touch each other if the branches of our trees rub together.
And the trees themselves. They think such slow, comforting thoughts. I nestle in the elbowed creases of their forks and listen to the eddied whorls of their notions. Each thought is a concept that takes years to form, adding another ring to the inside. I have to pay attention to understand it because it forms so quietly and takes so long.
Each tree is different. Each nymph is different also. For instance, Loveleaf-To-My-Left, the nymph next to me, is allergic to pollen, female, a darker green and much longer than me.
I have a name for myself, taken from my tree’s thoughts. It is a long name. A concept from when my tree and I were young together and the future was endless. It is a name of hope and challenge.
Loveleaf-To-My-Left calls me Underskin-Touchbranch-Reacher. She has a name for herself, based on the ridges of her tree’s bark. We name each other. We name ourselves. The names we give ourselves are secret. The names we give each other we repeat over and over to the forest when we talk.
Right now, the wind is playing with the weakened leaf stems, plucking them off one by one. My skin is peeling and my hair in falling out. Soon, I will go blind and lie lifeless in the embrace of a knothole in the trunk.
The tree and I will lie still through winter and dream of spring.
tags