Prose for a Tree
My favorite tree was the great maple in our back yard. Unlike the others, I never gave her a name; she was too special. My father hung a swing from her branches and I sat, swinging, day after day, telling her all the wonderful stories I would one day write, about all the things I hoped and dreamed, and how I would always come back here, back home, and speak to her. And the tree would sigh, her great branches creaking as the wind stirred through the tops, and we would sing together, her arms spread around me and lifting me into the sky. I remember the first time I climbed up and reached the highest branch, the tallest of all trees, and saw more of the wide, sprawling countryside then I ever dreamed was there. I sat among the birds and listened to their music. I listened to the wind, my cheek pressed against the weathered trunk of my tree. I was safe here. Here, I was home.
I went to University in the city the year I turned twenty. That year, the thin, ten acre strip of land that lay between us and the farm went up for sale. We had bought the farm in the 80's when money was good, but now that the recession had hit we knew there was no way we could buy anything more. All we could do was hope that whoever bought would love the wild as much as we.
I left that summer, to help the orphans in Guyana. While I was gone, the property sold. While I was gone, the marsh, where ducks and geese and mergansers had built their nest for the last ten years, was drained and fashioned into a sculpted pond; the neighboring fields flooded. The wild grapevine -- which I had played under in my youth, and in that time had grown so huge that they draped the cluster of elms in vibrant green lace -- was torn down and thrown away. When I came home, I could not recognize this place where I had grown up. I sat on the swing beneath my tree and cried. I hugged her, and she hugged me back. We still had each other. That, I said, would never change.
There comes a point when you realize how truly helpless you are as a human being. When you find that no matter how hard you care, how hard you dream, dreams can be torn to threads and hope dashed like candle in a whisper. That everything that ever meant anything to you means nothing to anyone else, and you are told it shouldn't anything to you, either.
I lost my tree.
It began slowly, badly. 1999, our new nieghbours arrived from the city with dreams of their own. First, they decided they wanted to use our hyrdo poles, as they wanted to put their house level with ours, 1000 feet back from the road. (Our nearest nieghbour to this point had been a half a mile away) My parents, ever generous and neighbourly, consented, so long as they agreed to take over their maintenance. They refused. My parents reconsidered, and agreed again, if they would just move their house up slightly so it wasn't directly in our back yard. Instead, they ordered a new survey of the property. They then declared that our hydro poles were on their land, and had to be removed. We had to get a lawyer to read them the by-law which stated that a structure could not be moved after twelve years, and more pointedly, there was nothing incorrect with the old survey.
They built their house in our back yard, twenty feet from our kitchen window. An ugly, blocky house, they ran the garage down along side the property line, so, they said, they couldn't see us from their back yard. They dismantled our farm's turn-of-the-century stone fence to line their driveway and flower beds while we were away on vacation, and bulldozed the pass we used to get between our two farms, that had been in use for over 100 years. They wrote to the township, complaining about the scrap cars my father (like every other farmer in the county) had in the yard. That spring, because of the changed water table, our barnyard flooded, and we had to move 200 baby chicks; in August, 65 full-grown birds were stolen.
My tree was broken as they bulldozed down the land to "landscape". The new survey also claimed that the tree was on their land. So they tore down the swings. They put up a huge fence between my tree and I. I can't even touch her, hold her. All I can do is look, her ragged limb down and dangling, her trunk jutted from the shovel's blade. I can't look any more.
I can't go home any more. I can't stand going to the place where I grew up, and see what people have done to the vast, beautiful wilderness. I can't bare to see my trees in pain, I can't bare not to be able to reach them, protect them. And there is nothing I can do. Lawyers move so slowly, and, ironically, because in the beginning we tried being friendly and didn't complain about the little things, we're told we don't have much clout to do anything now.
Why? Why would someone move here, move into a new place, and make enemies with everyone around them? Why would they hurt the trees? Why would they leave the city, only to try and re-create it in a wilderness unspoiled? Why is this seen as progress?
There is nothing I can do. I'm told I shouldn't care, that I should let it go. I try. The hurting won't leave. Even when I think it is finally gone, a seed is piercing, waiting to shoot up again when I least expect it. It's not just a tree I cry for, it is a memory, a dream, an entire way of being. This what I was made of, what raised me, this vast wilderness. When it is gone, where do I go? Where is my home?
I live in the city. Dark walls surround me. There are no trees. I am told, it is better that way.
It is a sad state of the world we live in, when it hurts to dream....
Please remember them,
Neena
me, age four, swinging