My fascination
with trees started in grade school. Before the Christmas break our
teachers taught us that the pine tree was THE Christmas tree! Period.
It should look like an acute pyramid - sort of - anyway because no
pine trees grew in the island. But I think we were very ingenuous.
We cut off branches from wild trees growing in Guyangan hill and tied
these around a bamboo pole and shaped it like pine. I did suggest
to my grade school teacher that Nanay Ines' betel tree, tall and robust
and heavy with fruit in her backyard was as authentic a Christmas
tree as pine. That did me in. I had to write on the blackboard one
hundred times, the word PINE!
I had my first look at a freshly cut tree in my early twenties in
a friend's house in Chicago. He said it was real. A young pine tree
cut from a nursery in Kalamazoo, Michigan! Then I understood why Christmas
trees are "pine-shaped." Yet, this "mis-education"
has nagged me incessantly: how real is a Christmas tree if it is not
shaped like a pine?
+++++++++++
Joyce Kilmer's "Trees" is amazingly contagious. In 1998,
I had this relative-in-law who convinced me to plant mahogany trees
in a 10-acre property in barangay Doña Carmen, municipality
of Tagbina about 30 kilometers from Mangagoy, Bislig, Surigao del
Sur. It takes over an hour to reach Dona Carmen through a gravel and
sand "rock-n-roll" road. There are five "to-og"
trees in the property when we planted the mahogany seedlings. One
of the "to-og" is about a hundred years old and its trunk
requires three man arms length around it. On the visit the following
year, Kilmer got into my nerves and I obliged with something like
a poem:
...the morning sun smiles at a tree
a gentle breeze hisses its leaves.
the oriole sings; the owl moans
the crickets burst in laughter
and the green lizard dances.
the tree stands tall:
serene and regal in her gown
of glory bestowed by light and shadow;
her passion teased by dewdrops
her magnificence bared in silhouettes
of sun and moon!
the tree never complains:
she braves the storm with intelligence
honed in centuries of forgiveness.
she cannot tell a lie -
her religion speaks of truth!
but i hear the piercing roar
of chain saw.
speechless, i am dead
and my poem becomes as loveless
as a fallen tree!
+++++
Enough of Kilmer. That same year (1999) in April, I tried prose:
The April sun that afternoon knifed the skin as I hacked my way through
the bush that overgrew the four hectares of land where the five to-og
trees are as tall as the coconuts which I climbed in Banton island'
The to-og trees seemed to shoot its magnificence up the blue sky.
The To-og trees are hardwood specie, which are probably a cross of
narra and mahogany. The tall trees stood proud on its branchless trunks
with a bouquet of twigs and leaves as its crown. I sauntered through
the brush and stopped to where the biggest "to-og" stood.
Its massive and powerful trunk disappointed my attempts to hug! Speechless,
I ran my hands on the coarse and brownish bark and looked up. The
to-og was about twenty meters tall and healthy in years of growth!
Mesmerized with its power and beauty, my thoughts ran wild. Here I
stood side by side with a tree that made love with the wind and breeze;
listened to the music of the birds; savored the evening call of the
crickets; lifted tons of water from its roots; provided oxygen and
communed with the mountain gods. Here I was - an insignificant footnote
to a living goddess who braved the pouring rain and withstood the
storms that buffeted her reign of peace. Here I was with a sentinel
who stood head and shoulders over the greed of man.
One April day in a tree farm, I shook hands with God.
+++++++
The bad news fell in July 1999. My brother-in-law emailed me that
the to-og's trunk's base was turning out hollow and gutted like a
one-man cave. The forester estimated that the rot had reached up to
five meters and had suggested that we cut the tree to save the lumber
for a house or a cabin near a creek where the birds sing and the growing
mahogany trees around it abound.
But the ailing tree should be well again. And I really believed it
should. I refused to admit that the tree would succumb to the vagaries
of life.
2000.
2001.
2002
Three years of prayer and hope.
++++++++
July 2003. I visited the "to-og" tree. She was still regal with her
crown. But the farm hand was ready with the chain saw. Anytime he
said - he is prepared for the coup de grace. And that would mean about
P100k on the felled timber! I thought I had one final look at the
to-og tree. I walked away instead and told the farm hand to let the
tree die in peace.
