«« The Song of the Trees A long time ago before the first white man set foot in the New World an Indian girl called Lalita awoke from a frightening dream. She had seen great white birds crossing the ocean and a mighty wind that shook the trees so hard their trunks bent. She had heard the trees crying. “What does it all mean?” she asked. Her mother and father did not know. “It is just a dream,” said Lalita’s father. “Pay no heed to it.” One day, soon after Lalita’s strange dream, the little girl looked out to sea. There, on the horizon she saw huge white birds skimming over the sea towards her. Only they were not white birds, but big ships with white sails, carrying strangers to her beautiful land. It was her dream, and Lalita was afraid. The men who came across the sea strode ashore. They brought their axes to the beautiful forests of the New World. They paid no heed to the Indians, who loved the trees and could understand their language. The men began to cut the trees down, one by one. They dragged the felled trees away on great sledges and the ground beneath them was left bare and empty. Lalita wept to see all the destruction. All the creatures of the forest fled, from the largest bear to the smallest bird. The Indian people went too, the old on sticks, and the babies in their mothers’ arms. But Lalita did not go with them. She knew in her heart that she must stay with her beloved trees to the very end. “I will follow later,” she told her mother. Lalita crouched in a tiny cave, watching in fear and grief all that she saw. She could hear the trees crying as the axes swung against them. Their voices were like those of children, and they almost broke her heart with their sadness. Lalita watched and listened until the very last tree had been dragged away, and the strangers left at last. Lalita came out of the cave as night was falling. The stars shone in the sky like jewels. The Northern Lights leapt and played above the hills in their sapphire, ruby and emerald fires. But Lalita could not see any of it. She cried for the forest she had loved and for the trees she had known by name. She cried for her people whose home it had once been. Through her tears she did not see the great curve of the silver moon as it rose over the mountains and shone across the empty silence of that place. She lay on the ground and her hair that was the colour of ravens’ wings, trailed in the empty mud beneath her. For seven days and seven nights Lalita lay there, and for seven days and seven nights Lalita wept. Lalita’s tears fell so hard that they flowed into a single stream… and then into a river that crossed the bare clearing and wove its way through every hollow. But on the morning of the eighth day a strange thing happened. A single green shoot appeared beside Lalita’s river of tears. The shoot flowered into a beautiful snowdrop, with a head as white and soft as the wool of the first spring lamb. Soon came another and another until the thick black mud gave way to a sweeping carpet of white petals. But Lalita did not see them. Lalita continued to weep, and so her tears fed the stream, which flowed on into new corners and new hollows. And through her tears she did not see the sprouting of tiny oaks, or the first sharp spines of fir trees. She did not see the ash and rowan growing around her feet, or the birch trees appearing beyond her outstretched hands. And one morning, as dawn was breaking, Lalita heard a sound as clear and thrilling as a flute. “Birdsong!” she whispered. She stopped crying at last and opened up her eyes. There in the branches of a maple tree was a robin redbreast. Lalita laughed aloud for joy and stretched out her hand. The robin shared her joy and soared into the air before coming to rest on her fingertips. Lalita’s beloved forest was coming back to life. Her tears of love had refreshed the earth and watered the seeds. Her love had brought back the animals and the birds and her family. To this day the Indians say that if their love is as strong as Lalita’s, all that has been lost in the world will be restored, and all the destruction will be returned to beauty. Kenneth Steven The song of the trees London, Little Tiger Press, 200
Posted on: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 12:22:23 +0000
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