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Trees I Have Known
In the mind of a Grough the woodland way can raise awareness by perhaps as much as two feet but only if a Great Dane has recently passed by. Normally, only one foot is raised. The occasional squirrel can bring the mind to higher things but, on the whole, the Grough nose stays firmly rooted to the...um...roots.
Of course, some roots move the mind to lower things. What tree root, for example, could ever make one think of the rear view of a truffle-hunting pig? This demands closer inspection.
But it's probably best to forget all about the likeness of tree roots to porcine posteriors. Best, too, to ignore the ghostly faces crying in interminable silent agony from their wooden prisons built of tortured limbs;
best to dismiss from one's mind all thoughts of the strange long-necked creatures that might rear up from their leafy hideaways beside the forest tracks;
best to pay no heed to the dragons fighting fiercely just over one's head in the lower branches;
best to forget all those men and beasts who once upon a time ventured into these ancient whispering woods and were never seen again: best just to enjoy the shapes and shadows, twists and textures of the trees in the faintly eerie dappled light. For sometimes, against the welcoming soft green curtain of the new woodland, its trunks slim and silver in their youth, a grande dame stands guard, flailing her ancient blackened limbs like some arboreal avatar of Kali.
But never fear: her bark, as they say, is probably worse than her bite. And that is more than you might say for all trees, for some trees are real corkers and clothed in exquisite beauty, even those which you might, at a glance, mistake for an incognito octopus, recognisable by its wary, baleful eye.
Yet others limber up with a t'ai chi ch'uan so sure, so steady and so slow that passing mortals might see the sinuous ripple of movement only by its echoes in the bark.
But it is with a surprise bordering on shock that one can stumble over the decaying remains of a pair of rhinoceroses amidst the soft green undergrowth of a south Yorkshire woodland;
more so, perhaps, than recognising the serpent-headed Gorgon turned not to stone but to wood. Is it the cunning Medusa or the strong Stheno, or perhaps the wide-roaming Euryale?
Whichever, a browsing stag remains oblivious to the Gorgon's charms...
...and to the threat of all those gnarled watchers of the greenwood who seek to hide in the guise of trees.
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Ink Amera |
(C) David 8/9/2007 |
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