DAPHNE

It isn't often that you find yourself having a conversation with a tree. Especially a moderately tall laurel tree. But today that is just what I was having right there in the middle of the Sawtooth Botanical Garden in Ketchum, Idaho. On, of all days, Arbor Day in late April! Late afternoon shadows were beginning to gather, and I had skipped lunch because a staff meeting had dragged on at the university, and I needed some fresh air. But how could I even consider heading for home? Dinner could wait. It was Arbor Day, and here I was (how fitting if crazy) – talking to a 20-foot-tall evergreen shrub!

“I know that I am more than a tree,” she said in a voice that was more like a purr. (For some reason, I was convinced that this laurel tree before me was a she). “Which is not to say that there is anything inferior about being just a tree. Some of us live for centuries.”

“Of course,” I agreed. “I, myself, have never thought any tree I ever hugged or climbed or sat under was inferior,” I replied. Thinking with a bit of guilt about the 3 or 4 fir trees I had felled for Christmases past. “But you are the first tree I have ever spoken to.”

“ What I mean,” she continued,“ is that I am more than what it says I am on that sign at my roots down there. I am much more than that.”

“ Prunus caroliniana is what the sign says”, I read, scouring my brain for some remnant of my high school Latin and coming up empty.

“Yes, a cherry laurel. That is what I am. We are the longest-lived trees in the whole laurel family. There are more than 3,000 of us.”

I imagined her pulling herself up with pride as she spoke. Had she indeed been a human woman, I could imagine her lifting her chin and brushing back her hair.

“Yes, yes, are more than a tree “, I agreed. “Because I can hear you talk to me! That is some kind of miracle. I have never met a talking tree, Prunus. By the way, my name is Rufus. “

“ Yes, that is the least of the miracles about me, Rufus. There is more. The laurel tree is legendary. Great men of history like the Ottoman emperor Augustus and Napoleon Bonaparte, they both wore wreaths fashioned from the laurel as a symbol of triumph, and honor...”

“ And a symbol of divine protection,” I added.” I may only be an untenured 32-year-old college professor of Environmental Sciences, but I know a bit of ancient history.”

“Divine protection indeed! We trees know how shallow some of you humans can be. You think you are superior to us. To all of us, from the beautiful dwarf willows to the giant majestic sequoias. Such human hubris.”

“I would never think that I was your better, Prunus, Miss Laurel.”

“ You humans saw off our branches and rip leaves from our limbs. You steal our berries and fruits and neglect to water us in the hottest weeks of summer, even though you take care to fill the birdbath for the birds. And carving your initials into the tender skin of our barks ??? Who gave you the license to do that?”

“You are right, Miss Laurel. We humans are misguided.” I could see she was angry; her branches were quivering.

.

“And Rufus, my name is not Miss Laurel. You humans, some of you humans, ignore our diseases even when we pant and droop, and do you ever say thank you for the shade and protection we provide and the grace we lend to your lawns and gardens season after season?”

“That’s not true of all of us. I think I have expressed my gratitude to trees, at times, I think, or at least I meant to.”

“In fact, you two-legged creatures pass us day after day, coming and going, going and coming, and never have anything kind to say. Unless there's an accident, or some act of nature which causes one of us to accidentally fall over your front porch or garage. Through no fault of our own. Then you chop us up, no matter how useful we have been or how valuable we are, and you haul us away to a place we don’t belong to sit in a disgraceful pile to rot or to become firewood!”

“I apologize for all you have suffered, Prunus. You and all your kind deserve much more respect from us than that, as a laurel tree and as a very special laurel tree. After all, you are a talking laurel!”

“ Rufus, that is not all I do and not all that I have been. I have not always been a laurel tree. But I have always had a voice. And you cannot turn me into firewood. And don’t call me.“

“Oh.I would never do that. I have too much respect for you to think of you and firewood in the same sentence. What IS your name, if I may ask?”

“You may ask, and soon you will know. Close your eyes and put your hands gently around my trunk. Hug me, Rufus.”

“Your trunk feels warm…. just like a human body. Like a woman’s body, a beautiful woman, a beautiful woman who has been running,”

“Yes, I ran and ran for centuries to escape him…”

“Him/ Who was him?”

“And then a century ago, I stopped and took root right here for safety. But it is time now to leave my roots.”

“But who was him? What do you mean leave your roots?”

“It was Apollo who pursued me across the centuries, but he has returned to his father. I am no longer in danger. I need no longer be a tree.”

“But I still don’t know your name?”

“ Put your arms around me, tightly, and close your eyes. When you open them, the tree will be gone, and I will be free. My name is….”

Of course, I had been speaking to Daphne. In Greek myth, she was the nymph pursued by the love-struck god Apollo, who was about to catch her when she cried out to her father, the river god Peneus, who transformed her into a laurel tree.

When I opened my eyes, I heard a rustle like bare feet scurrying through the leaves, and watched as a fair lady with graceful limbs and long blonde hair turned in my direction with smile for a moment, then disappeared into the trees at the top of the hill.