“Will you have me?” she asked in a faint little voice. “Will you?”
Standing under this huge tree was a little girl in her pajamas, barefoot, looking up. It was almost dawn. The stars were still bright, maybe their brightest before the light.
Did she have teardrops in her eyes? It didn’t look like it. She kept looking up. Was she talking to the tree? or something bigger? One couldn’t tell.
Stillness. Night voices had faded and the morning sounds had not arrived. The stillness. In between.
The little one stood tall looking up. And then down, looking at her feet on the ground, to the earth in between the huge roots of the tree. The roots, her feet, small, big, earth, the ground. And then she turned her eyes up again whispering,
“Will you have me?”
This time it was clear she was talking to the tree. (or was it?)
“Will you have me?”
The tree remembered.
All the vows, all the creatures small and big, the birds, the bees, the fox, the snake, the horse, the cat and the dog, the plants green and all, the grass, the flowers, the mushrooms, the water in and between her roots, the earthworm and the butterfly, the snail and the ladybug and the ants and all…And the humans…the humans who came and left, who broke her and hugged her. The storms, the rain, the fires, the sun, the sky, the clouds.
She remembered the seasons, dying and being born and giving birth and dying.
She remembered the leaves, the wind song, the fruits, the fall, the drought, the spring and summer and the harvest, the abundance.
She remembered winter.
and the stillness.
and life.
She remembered life. She was life.
The tree remembered.
So…she leaned forward as big trees do, with the help of the morning wind. Her long leafy arms touched the little girl’s hair, the little one still looking up. And looking straight into her eyes with the infinite sky and stars at her back, whispering in her ears, the tree said:
“I got you.”
“I always have.”
“I got you.”
And the little girl hugged her and the tree hugged her back – still, tender and strong.
Her leaves softly clapped in joy.
The sun could no longer be still and decided to dawn with a big smile for all of life.
elif