My park gates are being opened; I hear the metal hinges creak. They are rusted now, these hinges—pieces of browned, crisp metal drop off quietly, mix with leaves, and are blown by the autumn winds to bank up against the bars of the tall gates. My park is peaceful when it’s empty; when no one sits on the slatted bench-seats reading, or eating a solitary packed-lunch—or occasionally just pausing to rest in the course of a pleasant amble as they often do—except for the birds that take up any empty seat, diligently preen their feathers and leave behind their sticky white soil to be washed away by the rain at some other time. This is when there are no rambling dogs whose sole intent is to find the next shrub to smell, while ignoring everything else in the way. This is when there are no couples, arms entwined, oblivious to the world around them, and unconsciously matching their synchronised steps, as they wander past me. It is in this emptiness that serenity takes over—the gardens belong to me, and I reflect on what this park means to me now, and how the decades have changed us both.
To some I am just an old tree, but I have had a life which has been recognised in the past and recorded. Occasionally a stroke of serendipity has brought happiness to my existence, in the form of special visitors who have been led by park-officials to stand near me, look up, admire my longevity and health and write about me. Sometimes people with large drawing pads have spent hours trying to capture my structure with their pencils and once or twice in my life an easel has been set up on the path nearby, and earnest artists have used their paints to try to colour my life. I never thought that these painters really understood what I represented, and were just doing something they thought might be quite interesting to do—just a recreational activity to fill in their day; just a visit to a park—and I never tried to engage with them. I am better in black and white profile, I thought often, because I have no blooms, no brightness, no glorious hues—except when the moon shines on my leaves and highlights my branches, but by then my gardens are closed for the day and the heavy gates are held together with a long steel-chain and security padlock, and no one sees.
There have always been lofty gates to filter people through into my park and they were here long before I came. But dogs were not. There was a time when the paths were pristine, swept and levelled, and never soiled or littered—except by my casual, and often insensitive, bird friends who sometimes broke my new growth into twigs to make their homes in my branches, dropping bits and pieces in the process. But that order in the park was before there were protesters parading outside, demanding that this public space be made available for everyone to use—and to use in any way they wanted. They wanted to just do as they wished in my park, and their wish was granted. So, many dogs came—on leash, for the most part at least—and groups of youths brought balls to throw and kick to each other with yelps of ‘yeah’ and ‘good-one’ (noisier than any dog). And youngsters pushed the low shrubs in my garden beds aside to retrieve their playthings, not noticing what they trampled on to do this—and not noticing me. Picnickers also came, and then the painted signs saying ‘Keep Off the Grass’, and the low looped-wire fences at the edges of the paths, were all removed to allow rugs to be spread out every-which-way and disrespectfully. And they left behind their debris and overloaded the once-discreet timber rubbish-bins which were eventually replaced with heavy-duty plastic receptacles. All this offended me at every level, and it made me indignant, and I lost my luxuriant growth for a time, which took me some time to recover.
I am old and complaining, I know, and I no longer awake in the dawn opening my branches with anticipation of what the day might bring. But I still watch quietly, high above the path, as they come in groups, or sometimes solo, and I wonder about the lives they live that brings them here—perhaps even lives that they come here to avoid, or to reflect on. Sometimes I know they also come here to celebrate with balloons released indifferently into the sky, and then they scatter the remains of their party-food, delighting the birds with their leavings. And in my watching, I ponder about my own life and all it has spanned.
I was a sapling once, in happy times in my park, my leaves were light and bright and abundant and I had so much potential for a long and contented life. I was protected and cared for, with so much to see and experience around me and so much to give. I didn’t know for sure, but I called it Spring. And I grew—tall and straight and proud, with a wide canopy of green which sometimes became a skeleton of branches with wayward leaves still attached—the last for that season, whatever name it had. But with the passage of time I have become anonymous, unseen, un-useful.
For a time I was battered by the winds and I tried so hard to keep my new saplings safe; the winds swirled around me and took me off guard for far too long, but I knew that being ‘on guard’ is what one must be when standing alone, always protecting, always allowing everything around you to grow under your shelter. Eventually those tender sprouts took root themselves and they are plucked out of the soil to be transplanted elsewhere. In their growing, I became less of Me, and there was little acknowledgement of the part I had played in their growth—the time when I had encouraged my seeds to fall on fertile ground and spent endless days tenderly encouraging their leaves to unfold under the nourishing filtered sun. With fondness, I remember that I had often moved my branches aside so rain and air could reach my saplings and give them energy to grow, and I felt joyful that I could do this, as I alone was responsible for their future for a very long time. I cared about all that once, and even when things began to change, I was happy that at least I had fulfilled my purpose once upon a time.
Although I am an old tree now, I still want to be recognised as a thing of beauty, to be recognised as worthwhile—and I still want to be hugged, to feel arms around my trunk, even if my outer layers are wrinkled and coarse and not smooth and inviting to touch anymore, and the smell of my bark no longer leaves an impression on the memory as evocative and vivid as the perfume of burning leaves.
It probably won’t be too long now before I hear the sound of saws coming to remove me They will do this in stages, lopping off my top branches and taking away the useful essence of me first, causing my limbs to wither and then I will be removed altogether, and who will remember that I was once here? There will be no sign that I am gone, because my roots will be gone too, their origins vaguely recalled as they fuel a fire with a warm glow.
Yes, there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens, and a time to be born and a time to die…a time to search and a time to give up. This is just my ‘next time’, my fourth age—I know that—and I must recognise that my most purposeful time has passed; I can no longer be relied upon to ably protect the little ones around me with my shade, and I have no new saplings of my own to care for. Nor am I always looked at in a kindly way by those once-needy saplings who grew well in my shadow and whom I nurtured, and for whom I once shed my leaves to make nourishing compost. Now they have grown so tall and strong and have learned to fend for themselves and their own saplings, leaving me to disappear little by little, and eventually they will have me removed from my place in my park. This is the way it has always been, this is the tree of life, and it will happen this way for them too—of that I have no doubt—and when it does, I hope that they will whisper amongst themselves, when the wind blows through their lofty boughs, ‘remember when…?’