...when it spoke.

…when it spoke.
___I used to be able to hear them when I was little. I think we all can at that age. The whispers among their leaves, the crackling laugher in the wind, the cries of pain as branches snapped. There was one in particular that I remember rested in our front yard. Most mornings the wind, lightly caressing my face with the scent of freshly burned cane, would carry its call for me to wake up. I don’t know how many times I climbed from my window, slick from the dew of early morning just to sit with it and watch the sun rise. I swear I could feel myself aging when we sat there in the mornings. The sun took so long to come up some days then it was over in a blink. Not much different than us I guess. Sometimes I woke up in slow daze finding myself curled up leaning against it for comfort. It always loved having me for company. I imagine it got quite lonely when I left some nights. That hollow sensation left when a loved one leaves or dies; it’s a painful experience for anyone.
___There were times my dad would pause by it in the winter and stare at it curiously; I liked pretending he could hear it too. I guess there’s not much use for that now. I never understood why it didn’t like winter till afterwards. Continually I’d tell it the beauty I could see seeping from it. I lost count how many pictures I took of it just to show it I was telling the truth. Still, it never wavered in its dislike for the cold months. It must have known better than I what was going to happen eventually. There were a few winters we had enough snow to build an igloo around it just big enough to keep us warm and talk in private. That thing could really tell some amazing stories then. So much emotion, so much emphasis on the heroes of its past, fallen, forgotten, or mute. By the end of those nights I was usually dozing on a bed of my own frozen tears. My pants always seemed to stick as if to antagonize my desire to hear more, I didn’t want to leave most nights. I never cared if it was bitter cold or not; it always pained me more to leave it in such horrible weather, alone and deserted. Sadly it became relinquished to my nightly betrayal.
___There was one year we had a tornado. My utterly confused mother had to carry  her screaming daughter, choking on tears to the cellar for her own safety. Listening to the oak doors moan as they writhed in constraint behind the iron latch, it normally took the whole night for me to shake those images of a yard scattered with splinters, the pieces of our forgotten family draped across the roof and sprawled across the cellar door. Those were the longest nights, the ones with the bad storms, every second wanting to burst through the cellar doors to help our neglected family. My parents never tried once. It wasn’t really family to them I guess; it never really had been.
___Eventually we did age while watching those sunrises, because it stopped telling me its glorious stories. It seemed to sigh more often in the wind as if tired of holding me anymore. Not necessarily disinterested, but accepting. Whenever I questioned it about its uneasiness, I’d only ever been confronted with cheerfulness and gratitude. I remember it only took a few more sunrises before I stopped hearing it. I still can’t understand why it didn’t explain more to me. I guess children have a way of listening that differs from our own; a sense from the heart that most adults forget with age. with wisdom.