When all the old grandmother trees have gone
Who will hold the land’s memories
When all the old grandmother trees have gone
Who will remind us about the learned mistakes of the past
When all the old grandmother trees have gone
Who will sustain the verdant web that binds us all to the Earth
When all the old grandmother trees have gone
Will we need ventilators to nourish Gaia’s lungs
When all the old grandmother trees have gone
Will we forget the feeling of breezy shade brushing the tops of our heads
When all the old grandmother trees have gone
Will we lose our connection to the soil beneath our feet
When all the old grandmother trees have gone
What will replace their slow steady rhythm of peace
Have you ever stood with your back against a big old grandmother tree and felt her wrap her comforting arms around you. The strong arms of a grandmother oak can shelter you from heavy raindrops that make her canopy sparkle and dance. The giant towering sycamore wafts down dappled sunlight while you snooze at her feet, yummy sandwiches rumbling in your contented belly. The mighty horse chestnut throws down spiky satellites that crack open to reveal fresh conkers that gleam like polished wood. It makes me sad when I see a fallen tree tossed aside in the battlefield of soil churned up by tyre tracks and boughs sliced off with whirring saws. You finally appreciate the size of these wizened old grandmas when they’re brought down to your level and you stand upon their corpse. Like families of elephants, they look after each other you know. The surviving trees send their fallen elders what food and nourishment they can to keep them going. Looking at the rings of life catalogued on the exposed trunks you get a sense of how many decades these old trees must have survived to make it to this size. It’s amazing to think how they have stood unfazed through the myriad of changes whirling around them – different people, different seasons, picnics and dog walks, parties in the park. But the authorities decide what has value and what does not. Today we are saving this species because we remember a time when the land looked like so. But what of the times before that, and before that, when we were all but stardust floating around in space. Who was here to manage the trees then. We have arrived with our big brains and our narrow view to say that the green bits must look neat, these dangerous trees controlled lest they fall over and squash us beneath their mindless weight. Nature is too unruly and too unreliable to be allowed to manage herself. We who have been here for a minute in her lifetimes are too eager to take over, like youngsters arrogantly pushing her aside to make way for the new.
I wonder if there will come a time when we will return to wild places. Or are we too afraid that the wildness without will call forth the wildness within. If we are not the masters, then what is our role, our purpose. What do we distract ourselves with when there is nothing to do but watch and dream. I hope we do return to wild times. I like to think that Mother Earth is just biding her time. Quietly labouring and birthing a new world for those of us who still remember when we sat with the green things around us to hear their stories and feel the energy of their life force coursing through our souls. The Green Goddess is still here. I feel her stirring as I sit upon the dampness of this forgotten tree stump. The roots of this old grandmother willow plunge deep into the soil to entwine fingers with the roots of the other lost grandmothers around me. Four grandmothers in all were felled today. Chopped, mulched, and taken away, leaving the young ones behind to fend for themselves. They’ve taken their wisdom and their memories, their ties to the past. And have left a dusty old house full of photographs and yellowed newspapers, speaking of a time that feels unreal to us now. One day we’ll have the courage to look through the empty house, sort through the photographs and read the columns, trying to decipher what the old grandmothers knew. As I sit here with the old grandmother tree, I notice a tiny sapling pushing up from her remains. Tiny bright green leaves quivering as they open up to the warmth of the sun. She’ll be ok. I feel it then. A new way is coming and it can’t be suppressed. And like a lone traveller I’ll keep walking, a dusty old photograph in my hand, trying to find the wild way the old grandmothers knew.