When Trees Dream of Being Trees

The tree decided to stop growing after it grew its thousandth leaf. “No more,” it whispered, and started throwing flimsily attached twigs and old nests down, and shaking the birds out. “I am a terrible tree! A thousand leaves is more than enough to prove that! I am slow and slight and my leaves are not lustrous. I have never made a flower, never made an apricot, never made an acorn. Go away birds! I am an impostor tree! I will be a post, if I can just shake off these redundant branches,” and the tree bounced up and down, twirled violently, and tried some catapulting maneuvers in an effort to fling off its limbs. Nothing much was flung, except for some leaves and a butterfly, and they were instantly free from its flinging force, and ended up drifting away instead of zinging through the air. And so the tree started to slam itself against the earth. Its branches were most certainly broken this way, but they were not broken off: such fibrous material does not easily come loose, does not easily separate from itself. So the tree was hung with broken creaking branches. Aghast, it felt itself growing. And, knowing it would only grow more of itself, it cried, “I must get out of the sunlight! I must get out of the rain!” It tried to sink into the dirt. But trees with their spreading root systems are even harder to push down into the dirt than they are to pull up. So the tree finally just stood there with its smashed branches, exhausted, in the late afternoon sunlight. The other trees around regarded the tree going mad without much comment. They had seen this dreadful thing happen before, when trees dream of being trees.

The Trappists

“I am a Trappist like the trees,” the lily thought to herself as she let the breeze sway her but said no words to it. “I am a Trappist like the lily,” the creek thought to himself as he swelled with pearly orange fishes but declined to interview them. “We are Trappists like the creek,” thought the raindrops, as they filled the pond with fresh cloud water, or mixed with the juice of a fallen cherry, or came to rest deep in the dirt, and everywhere neglected to explain or introduce themselves. “I am a Trappist like the rain,” thought the tree, as she felt the taciturn rain dripping off her warm needles onto the ground and the wet birds returning, and she made no speeches at all. “I am a Trappist like the trees,” the Trappist thought to himself as he walked into the forest, as he let the lily, the creek, and the fishes and the rain sway him, and said not a word.

~ Leach, Amy. “When Trees Dream of Being Trees.”
The Iowa Review 36.1 (2006): 54-54.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0021-065X.6166

~ Leach, Amy. “The Trappists.”
The Iowa Review 36.1 (2006): 55-55.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0021-065X.6167

Artwork: Judy Coates Perez