My father takes us out into the woods to show us the tree. Five trunks springing from the same root. He says it’s us. We might try to reach the light, but we’ll all keep fixed to him. To the family. That night, I sharpen my axe again. Nearly ready.
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6 comments:
Fairies are very slim people. No one knows how they work their magic. The fact that you never see them is testimony to their powers. Go down to the woods and you are guaranteed never to see one. Sure, some trees are fatter than others, but all conceal a fairy.
coppicing her hair made the roots thin and dry, left a scalp of leaves that dropped ocassionally into the butter. She knew only a few years more was left of the material she could use to keep him alive.
That was where he took me when he first kissed me. It was summer then (wasn’t it always summer when we were young?) There was green light and birdsong and the scent of sap. Underneath me, the bark was as warm as he was. A giant’s fingers cradling my back.
It’s not a tree, I tell them. Really, it’s a shrine. Or, like, a gravestone, you know? It’s where Dad took us to bury Poppy. That’s why the tree looks so healthy, I tell them, see how the bark’s all strong; go on, stroke it. Poppy was a good dog.
The silence of the wood in a photograph, that’s what Ed loves. No whisper of wind, or the sound of trees growing, shifting, reaching towards the clouds. No birdsong twitter, no scuttle-mouse skittering through fallen leaves, no insect hum. Looking at a photograph only the sound of Ed’s own thoughts.
Wood shivers, turning heat into fire, then into ash. Bark on bark, huddled together, they are childhood friends singing 'ring around the rosy, we all fall down.' Meredith sings like this still, like she's stronger than the wind, stronger than the cold, stronger than the fire that consumes all things.
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