The day is bright, said the bird,
And the old tree looks radiant in the sun.
How many people have asked his age? wondered the bird.
How many travelers have counted his roots or numbered his rings?
I was born in the tree’s tallest bough,
And my mother, and her mother before her, too.
We are all passing creatures, said the bird,
Slim and fragile and of the nature to fly away.
Our days fall fast as feathers in the winter chill.
But this dear old tree—
He is sturdy and wise and slow to move.
He has seen innumerable things
And pondered them in silence.
He has stood his ground
And his wisdom has come with great suffering—
For he has watched his sisters felled by angry winds
And his brothers felled by sullen men.
He has stood shivering in the frost
Without a scarf to warm his ancient skin.
But his roots grow longer by the year,
Plunging deeper into the moist and mucky soil
Which gives him life and makes him into a mysterious being.
And his limbs, with his trunk,
Grow taller by the day, creeping upwards to the heavens.
For the tree, wisdom is a simple thing,
Which consists in standing tall no matter the season—
Supple in the wind and solid in the quiet snows.
He lets God direct the sinking of his roots
And the opening of his boughs—
And the tree is content,
For he is a tree, a simple tree,
No more and no less than that.
This the bird said, and then,
With a chirrup and a flutter of wings,
He disappeared into the leaves.