LIVE OAK (a fable)

About 200 years ago, an acorn rolled through the grass, pushed by squirrels and an occasional gust of wind. It came to rest in a spot close to a beautiful tidal creek where dolphins dive and pelicans perch, always on the lookout for fish to eat.

The creek, which filled up and sometimes overflowed its banks when the tide tumbled in on a full moon, split a flat, marshy stretch of land on the other side of the big Cooper River, a place where nature ruled.

The acorn poked its roots into the ground, and soon a little live oak tree appeared. The tree was tiny at first, but it grew and grew, sprouting leaves, making new branches, getting fatter and fatter and taller and taller until, many years later, it could stretch into all parts of the sky like a starburst.

It was a beautiful big oak tree, soaking up the sun, proud of it accomplishment.

Then something unusual happened, something the oaks and magnolias and herons and dolphins and squirrels never expected. Even the wind failed to pick up the scent. People came and built houses for living in and stores for buying things and roads for getting around. They started to become friendly with one another.

The people built communities and began to socialize. The children played in special playgrounds and threw birthday parties so friends could get together. The grownups went to the theater and out for dinner. Families began to buy things to improve the way they lived.

More and more people came. It was getting hard to build roads and supermarkets and houses. There were so many trees, and so many animals!

The big happy oak tree watched and watched, every day and every night. The tree watched the people coming with all their things. One terrible day, several men with many poles and many wires came in a truck to extend electricity lines up and down all the streets. The wires hung on tall poles and were all connected together. The men who did the work didn’t care that they were planting electricity poles among the trees.

After a while, the trees forgot about the wires passing through their branches and started again where they left off. Squirrels scratched and scurried up and down the rugged trunks. As the years went by, the trees turned their green leaves to the sun, stretched and stretched their limbs and cast a cool shade on the ground.

The big happy oak tree watched cars roll past and scruffy people collect their newspapers early in the morning. One day, the man living in the house below climbed into the tree with a saw and trimmed away all the unnecessary or unhealthy little branches. The oak tree felt clean. To thank the man, the tree took an easy breath, ruffled its leaves and grew several inches, just enough to reach the house and caress its roof.

The oak tree continued to grow, watching grownups kiss and fight and laugh, watching children play and hug and yell and sing.

It watched one little girl from the house across the street come outside and swing on a round yellow seat hanging from a chain. The little girl looked up from her swing and marveled at the canopy of rustling leaves, at the birds darting from branch to branch, at the vastness of the sky overhead, and at the carpet of acorns the tree had laid upon the soft earth. The little girl reached down and scooped some acorns into her hand.

The chain of her swing was wrapped around the limb of another beautiful proud oak tree. The two trees were happy to be so close together, their branches intertwining above the asphalt like fingers.

One evening, the two trees watched a man collect his mail from a white mailbox near the road. The man held a light blue postcard in his hand, and when he read the message his face made a frown. Then he turned slowly and looked up at the trees.

When the big truck with a lightning bolt painted on the side arrived, no one was paying attention. The man who received the postcard had driven away in his car. Other people had driven away, too. A few stayed inside or did their daily chores.

The buzzing and chopping and grinding were very loud. It was the sound of destruction. It was the sound people make when they cannot see what’s ahead of them and when they don’t know how to look at what was behind them. It was the terrible sound people make when they are only following orders. It was the sound they make when conscience is shoved away.

When the frowning man came back home later that day he turned slowly and looked up at the trees again. He saw a giant, sky-filled letter “V” cut into a row of big trees. He saw huge piles of cut branches on the ground. He saw black electricity wires running from pole to pole through the airy spaces in the trees. The wires snapped and buzzed.

He thought: When you are not attached to the land, it is easier to forget. He thought: When you are pushed aside, it is harder to stop the forgetting.

After 200 years of slow stretches and turns, the branches in the middle of the big oak tree were gone, centuries of patient labor made to disappear in an instant. The tree was shocked, unbalanced, confused. What had just happened?

The sun shone hot on its leaves.

The wind blew fast through its branches.

The rain moistened fresh wounds.

The squirrels had to reassign their paths.

The people came home to cook dinner and watch TV.

The frowning man looked at the tree and hung his head low.

The next day, the little girl returned to her swing. In her pocket was one of the acorns she had scooped up. After turning twenty times and watching the thick, ridged bark of the oak tree cross her field of vision again and again, making her feel as though she were lost in the woods, she noticed an empty corner in the yard where the birds liked to bask in the sunshine and pick at the earth with their beaks in search of worms and bugs.

A cardinal bird saw her approach and flushed bright red before flying to a branch of the oak tree. There, in that sunny corner, the little girl stood still for a moment, thinking. A smile crossed her lips and she plunged her hand into her pocket, pulling out the acorn and holding it up in the sunlight.

With her hands, she dug a small hole then dropped in the seed.

That winter it was especially cold. The girl went to school. The frowning man went to work. The neighbors came and went in the cars and trucks. The trees shivered in the wind. No one was thinking about acorns, not even the sleeping squirrels.

And no one noticed when something new, something tiny and miraculous, happened in the sunny corner of the yard as soon as spring arrived.

Adam Parker

Revised August 10, 2013