The Meadow

It shook its branches — scattering sparrow feathers and faintly yellowed leaves — and pressed its roots deeper into the earth, searching for pockets of moisture. Its crown, warmed by the morning sun, rustled its thick leaves in a slow attempt to find relief. It had still been a young, healthy sapling when they brought it to this meadow stripped of all other trees (it cannot remember who, or why), and since then, having aged too soon, its temperament had grown heavy. Sunlight no longer pleased it, and the chirping of birds grated on its nerves.

That day, clouds drifted restlessly across the sky and soon covered the sun for a while. It felt relief — welcomed the coolness — exhaled a long, rustling breath and drew its leaves back from its eyes. The first thing it saw, as always, was the great meadow spread out before it, its greenness broken only here and there by dandelions. For example, three dandelions standing in a line directly ahead, like soldiers in formation — if you followed them with your gaze you would see... wait. Where are those dandelions? More precisely — what is this thing that now hides them? It shook its branches, rubbed its wooden eyes, and looked carefully. No, it was not dreaming — but something was clearly standing here now in this meadow, where for years it had been the only tree and nothing had ever blocked its view of the dandelions. Slowly, it followed this uninvited guest upward with its eyes — first branches, then more branches, beautiful large rustling leaves. It suddenly stopped rustling. In complete silence, leaf by leaf, it studied the newcomer. The longer it looked, the more its roots stirred beneath it, as if gripping the earth hard to keep hold of reality — but the strength had drained from its roots, and it swayed the way it used to sway in those February winds it knew so well in this part of the country. It traced from crown to root, then back again, over and over without stopping.

The newcomer had been traveling and was tired, and had apparently only noticed too late that the tree standing before it was studying it intently. First it shook its branches this way and that, quickly scanned the surrounding meadow as inconspicuously as possible, confirmed again that besides itself there was only one tree here — and that tree was unmistakably watching it. It drew its branches away from its face and, slightly startled (the way birds used to startle and hide in its dense branches at the old place, when mean children threw stones), looked back — and gave an almost imperceptible dip of its crown.

It had been slow to realize the newcomer's gaze was directed at it. At first it lost itself — glanced sideways, then upward, pretending to look at the sky, then back down — but it knew it looked ridiculous, and tried to compose itself, to meet the other's eyes directly. It could not quite manage that, and ended up looking somewhere between the eyes and the first pair of branches. Then it saw the newcomer give a slight dip of its crown, and it tried to bow its own head in greeting. The newcomer smiled — barely, but perceptibly. The sight of that smile gave it courage, and it tried to speak. The first time, it failed — a laughably tender rustle escaped it. It covered its mouth with its branches, cleared its throat, and tried again. This time it recognized its own voice, and attached a greeting to it. The newcomer answered with a greeting of its own, and slowly, slowly, they grew bolder and rustled more freely.

The clouds, meanwhile, had released the sun, and it again sent its rays across the meadow with full devotion — where a wondrous scene had begun. In the great green meadow, two trees standing face to face were rustling: now quiet, like a whisper; now loud, like open laughter, their whole bodies swaying with it — and the dandelion soldiers who had watched in astonishment, their rows slightly broken as if in disbelief, one of them inhaling so sharply from shock that it nearly blew all the fluff off the one standing next to it.

Days passed. Days gave way to months. It no longer dreaded opening its eyes in the mornings (though sleep now kept its distance at night). The birds' chirping no longer grated on it — it only shook its branches and sent them flying when it wanted to be alone with the one standing before it.

At the story's beginning, its thoughts had been interrupted when, beyond those three soldier-dandelions — who could say from where, or how, or by whose hand — a wooden bench appeared, which the newcomer half-concealed unless it leaned slightly to one side. In recent times, two figures had been coming to this bench. As time passed, they came more often and stayed longer. They would sit, talk, laugh, then one would lay their head on the other's shoulder and they would sit motionless, gazing into the distance — and neither tree nor anyone else could say what they were thinking. Those who watched them knew what they lacked. They wanted to touch each other the way those two did on the bench. One day they decided to try — they stretched their branches toward one another, but the distance between them was still too great. Only their breath drew close, through the leaves. However they tried, whichever branch they reached with, they could not manage even a moment's contact.

Months of these attempts gave way to years. Summer's sunny days exchanged themselves for winter's snowy ones. Long, ice-cold nights and warm nights filled with the sound of crickets. Their longing never quieted — to touch each other just once — and those two never tired of coming to the bench. What did it matter that both their heads had gone white, and the green meadow now mixed their whiteness in with the dandelions, and that walking had grown difficult for both. They could no longer run laughing around the bench, but one could still rest a head on the other's shoulder, and still gaze into the distance — seeing something now, perhaps, for which they could not bear to be parted — each quietly wishing the other gone before them.

One day — a day to which the word "ending" may belong — only one white head appeared at the bench. It sat down with difficulty and looked to the side — even from behind, it was easy to imagine what desolation and longing shimmered in those tear-bright eyes. At this sorrowful sight, the two trees stood frozen — and then the sound of something swinging cut through them, and one groaned, its branches cracking with pain. One swing followed another, then another. The slowly rotting pieces of its body fell at the roots of the one standing before it — and this was not at all the touch both had dreamed of.

It gathered its last strength to stir its old roots, to pull free of the earth, and while feeling still remained, to carry away with it that touch. The one standing before it joined the effort. Both, with all the strength left in them, tried to tear free of the earth and leave their mark upon each other. Slowly the earth cracked. The cracks spread and grew, and the roots emerged on the surface — roots which over all these years had sometimes shared water in times of drought, and sometimes shielded each other from too much rain. The roots that surfaced lost their grip, tilted, went slack — first the largest and oldest branches touched each other, and then all at once they pulled free and, before falling to the earth, became one body. One great happiness, which froze upon their old, weathered wood like a dusting of snow.

Not long after, this happiness — born of a first and final touch — was shared with just one: the visitor to that bench, for whom, on the road toward his laughing little girl, they followed as the only guide.

The green meadow was entirely green now. The dandelion soldiers were pulled up by a small boy running through it and brought to a small, giggling girl standing by the bench, who took them with a smile, blew on them, made some wish that neither man nor tree could know — and clasped her hand over the hand of the breathless, bright-eyed boy.