Death breathes life
The boy entered the 'Valley of the Giants' and followed the 'Ancient Empire' boardwalk and rammed earth trail over the forest floor.
He followed his father on the 'Tree Top Walk' through the tingle forest canopy. He pointed at three rare eucalypts-the red, yellow and Rate's tingles surrounding the trail...
The boy touched their moss-covered, huge and buttressed trunks, looked up in their ever-green majestic crowns and then down on their roots lost in a lush understorey of tassel bush, fern and wattle.
A red tingle tree that appeared to have a face on its gnarled trunk took your interest. "Red tingle trees have often suffered damage from past wildfires", explained his dad.
"The trees continue to grow around the scar, but the next fire will burn away the dead wood. After centuries of fires, a huge hollow eventually develops with often occupies most of the enlarged base of the trunk." He continued to explain but suddenly
there was no sign of the boy. The ancient forrest swallowed him. 'Just soft cracling in the distant trees, the air grew strange and hazy, the steady buzz of busy bees droned slow and low and lazy.'
'Now dusk was falling slowly on the forest floor. The boy went to investigate. The time of Bushfire Dreaming was at hand and he alone had to face the story of the fire and try to understand.'
The boy sneaked inside the burn-out hollow hopefull that tree-fire story would follow: 'Fire within and fire without. Fire burned away the vestige of doubt. Fire from its skin to its fluttering heart, droving it up in a sweet parabolic arc...
and on the highest of twigs was a perfect flame, which with all its might, it clutched to its frame, leaving a deep hollow, blackened and dead.
'Then its branches and its leaves became shrivelled and scorched as the fire leapt above them, the treetops were torched.'
'Ashes from a tree rose up like a prayer to the swollen steam clouds that were hovering there. Each teardrop cried, raining blows on the fire that hissed as it died.'
'The pale sun shone through the cool thin air. The ground was black and sodden and bare. Gone the dead wood and dry underbrush, and over the ruins fell a horrible hush...'
'All survivors felt lost and heartsick, remembering they had been through the fire and wondering around in their own nightmare stumbled on the remains of chapel...'
'The priest's wise words filled their hearts: "Let the fire protect us from vanity, let the fire teach us humility, now I know you all feel this sense of futility,
but if each does what we can in our special way, together we'll build our world better one day.'
'In black branches thin sap veins on like embers. Then slowly, so slowly that no-one remembers, through black bark burst small leaves...
'that were brilliant and green, and earth flooded with flowers that had never been seen.'
The boy ran back to his father, the story of fire ringing is his ears: "Please, father tell me about that fire we had, please..."
His father took his hand and led him out of the forrest to their car: "Those of us who live in the South West know that we live with the risk of fire. This was the case with the last fire in our Nannup,
do you remember, it looked like a burnt-our wasteland. The day after the fire roared through our place was a black desert."
"But not any more," the boy cried out when they drove back home.
"Seedlings have forced their way through the ash and the big trees are sprouting new leaves.
When the rain comes there will be an explosion of new growth." His father smiled at him: "50,000 ha were burnt, but the bush is regenerating..."
"Trees are the heroes of the garden," his mother came out of the house to greet them: "They take up carbon from the atmosphere, shade the house and garden...
"and act like outdoor air-conditioners," his father added smiling back at his wife: "Therefore we live surrounded by trees, you see."
"We don't have air-conditioners and other modern appliances, because we live in your family house that is over a hundred years old," his wife waved her hand at him: "A decaying old house with its muted twilight colours and dark menacing shadows,
an old house as you see in a bad dream..." Her husband took her hand: "That's not true, darling, when you first saw this house, you said you like its dilapidated grandeur..."
She shook her head: "I didn't know I end up living in it, although it has spectacular views from three verandahs, but it needs to be repainted..." He laughed: "No way, the effect of peeling painted timber creates a beaufiful patina...
that speaks of age and the wear of time." His wife shook her head in disbelief and smiled at the boy: "Come on, time for dinner and when you are big enough you help me to paint the house."
The boy ate his supper listening to the creaking of the old wooden floor and had a disquieting sense of just how rickety and unstable a built structure is when confronted with unstoppable forces of nature and time. Not like those big trees at all....
Red tingle tree
Eucalyptus jacksonii
the most massive of them all
a huge black hollow
in the middle
of its trunk
its bark is rough
stringy
grey changes
to redish-brown,
once you climb
70 metres up.
I have a dream
of finding myself
snug and secure
in its beautiful crown
blossoming white
in summer,
that innate desire
that all tree-dwellers must have
to close my eyes
and go back in time
65 millions years
when the first red tingle tree
appeared on planet Earth
weather was warm
and continuosly wet
Valley of the Giants
the home of my special tree
was in the heart
of supercontinent Gondwana.
What I do now
is tell the story,
the red tingle tree
whispered to me at night,
called:
'Death breathes life'.
About 1612
the tree began its life
as a seedling
on the forest floor
shooting up
forming
its green crown
growing living thing
each leaf
breathes
in and out
chronobiology
the rhythm of life.
For three centuries
Aboriginals
tiptoed around it,
no one and nothing
disturbing its peace.
In 1911
timber industry began,
the white people
came around
and start to change things
but the ancient red tingle tree kept resisting...
A little girl used to bring
lunch for her father
setting it up
among its massive roots
above the ground,
while the woodcutters were eating
she was allowed
to wonder around.
The valley of Giants
was her school
and her playground,
everything here knew its place
the animals
the birds
the trees
the rocks
and her.
There is surely nothing so perfect
in nature
as the innocence of childhood
It is a quality that is perfect
in every incarnation
which transcends culture,
gender,
class,
and everything else.
The innocence
is one of the most difficult concepts
for our modern culture to deal with.
For innocence is not the mere absence of guilt...
innocence is the start of the journey
a tree sappling
taking roots in a new place
without any pressumption about the surrounding
taking everything like it is.
She fell in love
with that alluring
majestic tree
with the sheer wonder
of the untamed forest
she could travel
for days
without seeing
another person
this is nature as God intended
truly awe-inspiring
you have to see it
to remember
"How majestic the world can be
without human beings spoiling it,"
She begged her Father to stop cutting trees,
but he said:
"We have to live from something
and that is the only thing I know how to do."
Then the fire burst opon them from over the rise,
throwing up sparks like demonic red eyes,
towering high up to the black opal skies.
Huge tongues of flames flickering, licking up leaves,
cracking up branches and chewing up
her favourite red tingle tree.
With the roar of the fire
it was hard to hear
her Father's voice
when he picked her up
on his horse
fleeing the destruction,
that had never happened here before.
Fires started to rage
in southwest Western Australia
as there were no more
Aboriginals
to do preventive burnouts,
a massive plume over the Indian Ocean
acid smoke
death of trees
the scorching black empty land around.
The girl grew up
in a small town of Nannup
a 90-minute drive away
from her favourite tree
but it took two days
on a horse at the start of century.
Her Father found new job
in the timber mill
ahd she kept dreaming a
about her red tingle tree.
As the season changes
to the crispness of autumn
and beyond
the only fire to worry about
is the cracling log fire
in their living room
she asked her Father to take her back
to the Valley of Giants
but he refused.
She learnt to knit
colouring the sheep wool
red and green
tying those
loose threads
of an unravelling life
A mirage of the red tingle
in front of her
a kind of mirage
dimly visible
in the distance
at the beginning
of her personal journey
Knowing
that each cell
every individual
is at the mercy
of the cycles of time
from the second
that measures heart rate
breathing
to the weeks
of the woman's cycle.
She was expecting a child.
Passing adulthood
now that mirage
her world
is cleary drawn and vivid
her father
herself
and her son
are yoked together
by their own journey
as well as blood...
In 1940
her father died.
Her son drove her
to the Valley of Giants
where they stood
faces in shadow of the old tree
she knew so well and loved,
her father's ashes
covering the land around.
The moment of suspense
and stillness
in the subtle harmonies
of bark red-browns
and dusty blue-greens.
The woman touched gently
the hollowed out
and burnt base
telling her son
about the wildfire
when deep leaf litter and fallen logs
had burnt through its bark
and left scars of dead wood.
The majestic tree
so vibrant
the air everyone breathes.
It was like an epiphany,
the tree lokout was built
in its crown
and fire watches resumed
to prevent another damage to the valley.
They climbed up the tree,
sitting on its wooden platform,
looking down
on large fallen tingle trees
its twisted roots
and massive size
lying blackened and dead,
looking up
at the sky,
their father and grandfather
his body being burned on a funeral pyre
of dead trees
as part of funeral ritual
and now he is among the trees
he was cutting down all his life.
Intimitations of mortality
we never get over the shock
that people we love or admire die
with every close person
leaving us behind
we get
more fear
more acute sense of mortality
breathing down our necks
we live in a death-denying culture
in an age-defying
denying one,
leaving us all exposed
and vulnerable
when the inevitable comes.
You know it is there,
walk with reverence
and gratitude
every moment of your life
every passing minute
you remain alive
be passionate and kind
do not take
love and life
for granted
death denial
is also
life denying
do not fritter away
your time
doing things
out of duty
but not love....
She wanted him to understand
the transience of life
to get used to the idea
that we die
so we could live with purpose
to pose the question
we ask ourselves
time and again
"If I knew I was going to die tomorrow,
what would I do differently today?"
"If I knew you were going to die tomorrow,
what would I do or say now?"
It is a hard but fulfilling way to live.
"Look down there,"
her son suddenly said.
She saw a fallen,
dead tree
that had
amazingly,
sent up a new shoot.
Hugging a tree
on their way down
holding hands with natural reflection
its etheral quality
captured in every leaf
perfectly
in bright sunshine
even the drizzle is dreamy
feeling the sense
of inner peace and tranquility.
And they went away,
to live their life,
once up,
once down,
their choice,
they suddenly understood:
'If you don't put in the time
you won't go the distance.'
Then she was living in the sunset of an age
loosing the threads of an unravelling life
there was something immensely sad
about her unrequited love
and her acceptance
that 'after a certain age'
she became invisible
an old ghost gum
a paper bark tree
bent by the wind
She wished
she could linger
longer
and like many before her
she had developed
that age-induced selective memory
the stomach-churning journey
the wind, fire and rain,
the impossibly steep muddy ascent
all had faded
the memories that stick were of the overwhelming emotion of love.
Her is the RED TINGLE TREE
stubbornly holding its own
against the tides of human change.
A home away from home
at the edge of a dusty road
she had a soft spot for traditions
something that kept her going
she was part of a wonderful repository of wisdom
life experience
and love
that no one needed anymore.
One day she quietly died,
her body burned on a funeral pyre
of dead trees,
her ashes covering the dry
cracked land
around the Red tingle tree.
Her son comes often
with his daughter
to climb up
the red tingle tree,
she had a daughter
and that was me...
The red tingle,
our family tree...
Red tingle tree
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