Wishtree(3)

For a tree, communication is just as complicated and miraculous as it is for humans. In a mysterious dance of sunlight and sugar, water and wind and soil, we build invisible bridges to connect with the world.

Frogs have their own ways of connecting. Same for dogs. Same for newts and spiders, elephants and eagles.

How exactly do we do it? That’s for us to know and you to figure out.

Nature also adores a good secret.





7


I’m not just a tree, by the way. I’m a home. A community.

Folks nest on my branches. Burrow between my roots. Lay eggs on my leaves.

And then there are my hollows. Tree hollows—holes in a trunk or branch—are not uncommon, especially in trees like me who’ve been around awhile.

Hollows can be small enough for tiny salt-and-pepper chickadees or a family of deer mice. Or they can be quite large, big enough for an open-minded bear.

Of course, I’m a city tree. We don’t get a lot of bears around here, unless they’re of the teddy variety. But I’ve hosted more than my share of raccoons, foxes, skunks, opossums, and mice. One year I was home to a lovely and exceedingly polite porcupine family.

I’ve even sheltered a person.

Long story. (I have lots of those, stored up the way a squirrel hoards acorns.)

Hollows happen for many reasons. Woodpeckers. Fallen branches. Lightning. Disease. Burrowing insects.

In my case, I have three hollows. Two medium-sized ones were made by woodpeckers. The largest one happened when I was quite young. I lost a large branch that was weakened by wet snow during a nor’easter. It was a big wound, slow to heal, and my spring leafing that year was paltry, my fall color pale (and, frankly, embarrassing).

But eventually the hole healed, widened with the help of insects, and now, about four feet off the ground, I have a deep oval hollow.

Hollows offer protection from the elements. A secure spot to sleep and to stash your belongings. They’re a safe place.

Hollows are proof that something bad can become something good with enough time and care and hope.

Being a home to others isn’t always easy. Sometimes I feel like an apartment complex with too many residents. Residents who don’t always get along.

Still, we make it work. There’s a lot of give-and-take in nature. Woodpeckers hammer at my trunk, but they also eat annoying pests. Grass cools the earth, but it also bickers with me over water.

Every spring brings new residents, old friends, and more chances for compromise. This spring in particular has seen quite the baby boom. Currently, I am home to owl nestlings, baby opossums, and tiny raccoons. I am also visited regularly by the skunk kits who live underneath the front porch of a nearby house.

This is unprecedented. Never have I sheltered so many babies. It just doesn’t happen. Animals like space. They like their own territory. Normally, there would be arguing. Perhaps even a stolen nest or a midnight battle.

And certainly, there’ve been some disagreements. But I’ve made it clear that eating your neighbors will not be allowed while I’m in charge.

Me, I don’t feel crowded at all having so much company.

Making others feel safe is a fine way to spend your days.





8


I have one more community member, although “visitor” is probably a better way to describe Samar.

In January, she moved with her parents into one of the houses I shade, a tiny blue house with a sagging porch and a tidy garden. She is perhaps ten years old or so, with wary eyes and a shy smile.

Samar has the look of someone who has seen too much. Someone who wants the world to quiet itself.

Soon after moving in, Samar began sneaking into the yard once her parents had fallen asleep. Even on the coldest nights, she trudged outside in her red boots and green jacket. Her breath was a frosty veil. She would stare at the moon, and at me, and sometimes, at the little green house next door, where a boy who looks to be about her age lives.

As it grew warmer, Samar would venture out in her pajamas and robe and sit beneath me on an old blanket, spattered with moonlight. Her silence was so complete, her gentleness so apparent, that the residents would crawl from their nests of thistledown and dandelion fluff to join her. They seemed to accept her as one of their own.

Bongo especially loved Samar. She would flit to her shoulder and settle there. Sometimes she would say “hello,” in a fine imitation of Samar’s voice.

Often Bongo gave Samar little gifts she’d found during her daily flights. A Monopoly token (the car). A gold hair ribbon. A cap from a root beer bottle.

Bongo keeps a stash of odds and ends in one of my smaller hollows (which the opossums kindly tolerate). “You never know who I might need to bribe,” she likes to say.



But her gifts to Samar weren’t bribes. They were just Bongo’s way of saying, “I’m glad we’re friends.”

If this were a fairy tale, I would tell you there was something magical about Samar. That she cast a spell on the animals, perhaps. Animals don’t just leave their nests and burrows willingly. They are afraid of people, with good reason.

But this isn’t a fairy tale, and there was no spell.

Animals compete for resources, just like humans. They eat one another. They fight for dominance.

Nature is not always pretty or fair or kind.

But sometimes surprises happen. And Samar, every spring night, reminded me there is beauty in stillness and grace in acceptance.