Its been nearly two years since the original tree fell, and I visit the base from time to time watching the new sapling grow tall. Watching the powerline that it sits under, wondering how long it will be until the sapling touches this and is cut down. In some ways I think of the tree as defiant, and brave, just growing regardless, and I love the resilience that this shows. The non-judgemental view that a tree must have, to just grow again, and again and again, no matter what happens, the non-human lesson that this holds sits with me often when I consider my life’s path.
I contemplated crowd funding and campaigns to ‘save’ the new sapling, to get the power poles and lines moved, I’m sure the original tree was there first.
We went away on holidays and when I returned, I looked as I was driving by, as I always do, at the place where this sapling was growing. I looked a few times over the next week and I couldn’t see the sapling. There are a lot of other plants growing there now, and I am driving at 80km per hour, so there was still hope that the sapling had just been trimmed. Then I made time and stopped and walked the long grass and found that the sapling was no longer there. I felt sad and cheated the inspiring part of nature had been disregarded and destroyed yet again, the sapling had been cut down. I found the parts of the sapling tree, tossed aside as useless and unwanted. And that macabre feeling a cross between excitement and disgust came over me, now I could take the tree and add it to the tree place collection.
I gathered the parts of the sapling. I also took time to walk around the area and see what else was growing, acknowledging the death of the tree. I had been watching the original leaves from the canopy for the last two years decompose, and now they were all gone, absorbed back to the earth. And I noticed that there were small saplings sprouting up where the canopy of the ancient tree had fallen, it was in full flower when it fell. I realised that these juveniles were the descendants of the ancient mother tree.
And so the wood from the sapling is now drying and I will make something from it, combine it with the original wood, the contrast of the new and the old. I’ve watched the big fat borer grubs come and go from the small trunk, it only got to be 7cm in diameter, and it was 6 metres tall, the outer bark has dried and cracked. It looks so different to its mother, I wonder if the other juveniles will get the opportunity to grow to be ancient.