Secrets of Trees (Travel Story)
It is said that if you listen in the night, you will hear the goblin weeping...
I am not clear on how the story came about, but I was happy to know that there are strange trees her,e too.
Here is a story. Many mornings throughout the seasons, I take long walks in my neighborhood. I meet the occasional elder that I am especially glad to see. These days, I cannot be confident they will be around the next season. Aging and dead are ravaging companions wreaking havoc on the Japanese communities.
In the spring, I am equally happy to see the trees. The one tree I admire in these foothills of Mt. is the ginkgo.
In the spring, its leaves are the freshest green. Yet the bark itself has seen more days than a human. It is 300 years old and still striving.
The ginkgo tree is said to live very long, and this one certainly lives up to its characteristic of defying aging—quite unlike humans. It stands a good 35 meters tall with a trunk girth of 9 meters.
It is a welcome shade for weary middle-aged second-lifers, mountain travelers, ardent sightseers, and birds of the air.
But the most surprising is that is is home to a goblin. The one that weeps a night. legend has that if you listen carefully at night, you can hear its mournful cries.
Who knows what secrets trees carry. For the Guyanese, its the physic nut tree that runs blood on Good Friday if you cut it. It is the komaka in which the spirit of the dead dwells in and beneath. It is the Dutchman Tree that if you disturb it you perish. It is the taoataomona that pinches you if you enter the forest and pass that tree without asking for permission.
Who knows the secrets trees carry?