Imagination

I don’t know much about trees. They probably don’t know much about me either, although we share an overlapping space, spilling over as we do, into each other’s universe. This one has beautiful, small, dark green leaves. In late summer it creates small clusters of berries that quickly darken, from green to orange to bright red. The contrast between the dark leaves and the bright berries is striking. From my porch one morning, I stared at this tree a long while. I was admiring its complexity and beauty. Then I happened to notice a large and central, singular branch, looming toward me. It was curved, as the neck of some large creature might be. Smaller branches at the tip formed a triangle with two large clusters of red berries, upper left and upper right in the triangle. they took on the appearance of two large eyes. A smaller cluster at the very tip looked like a nose. In all, it seemed very much like a large Dragons’ Head, with pointed ears, large red eyes, and a small red nose. A gentle wind produced in it, a swaying motion as if its large neck was moving it’s triangular head up and down. It seemed to be saying: “Yes, that’s right, I am indeed a dragon, and you have found me out!” A young girl, older than I, at ninety-two, tells me my tree is a Mountain Ash, reinforcing my fantasy of a beast that came down from a mysterious mountain Lair, took root in my garden, and now defends me against the elements. During the course of its coming battles, it will lose its scales, becoming stripped bare. It will sacrifice eyes, nose, and all but its bones as it is left for dead upon the winter snow, But in the spring its life will be restored by the light from the globe of Merlin’s staff, or the sun, however you wish it to be. You see, for some, it is merely a tree, and while I don’t know much about them, each one it seems, has a story they are waiting to share.