The Lone Cypress

For a contest . . .

The Lone Cypress

         I am the Lone Cypress who haunts the cliffs of 17 Mile Drive. I have watched the ocean for years and years, far beyond the counting of the fall of needles from my limbs. I have breathed in the mists of ocean breeze, the spray of water -- salty and fishy-breathed. Yet, I survive to watch a hundred more man years. I am the Lone Cypress; hear my tale.

         Once I was a sapling, striving upward. I struggled to grow between the jagged rock. The clefts of pebbled droppings within that crack gave opening for my roots to dig down into the hard rock cliff. Against all reason I survived. And I grew.

         One day a rabbit gnawed at my tender shoots. He did not like the taste of me. He left. I was thankful, but I was lonely. I had not known the touch of animal before that time. His teeth were sharp, but his lips upon my young bark tickled. His lips gave me the feel of warmed breath. For many years I craved such a touch, even at the sake of my life. But it was not to be. Still, I lived on.

         The winds brushed my bristles. They battered me, whipping into my strength, flogging me with their force of destruction. Persistently I clung to life. My roots dug deeper into the battered rock, until they anchored me securely, and I lived on.

         The torrent of rain came next, assaulting me, drowning me until I thought the carbon dioxide would all be consumed by water, and I would swallow it and turn into sea. But the rain did not drive me away. I lived on.

         A single deer made its way to the top of the cliff. I welcomed it. My limbs shook with delight. The loneliness again assailed me. The deer scratched its back. The soft fuzz of its hide drifted down about my lower trunk. After it left, the scent of it, made me smile for many years. Memories live on.

         Rains of hail and storms battered my soft new bark. They froze my inner flesh – none of them could stop my growth. The ice was most unpleasant, and my needles fell in great abundance. Their softness lay among my roots, sifting down into richer loam. And I lived on.

         Man came. He ignored me at times. He tossed beer bottles around my roots. I did not feel them. They did not slowly decay into useful softness, enriching my soil. Others came and cleaned the cans and bottles. But some of them left ashes and cigarettes. My needles fell with their abuse, but I lived on.

         Ocean sprays, rain and wind, heat and sunlight, warmth and light. I knew them all, and then one day I truly learned about humans. I am beautiful. I stand tall and graceful to the wind. I am proud of my endurance, and I am proud of what I did, but sometimes, still I weep for her…

         I will tell you the story, and then you will understand.

         She was a youngling, hair like needles, falling down her back. Hair so soft, it was like the deer’s hide. Wisps of it flew about, and some of them I kept.

         She had the laugh of the wind on a day when it is lonely and wants to play. Her laugh thrilled me. I lowered my boughs and drew in the sound of it.

         Her body was a human’s body, softer than my trunk, yet it had the look of a tree, only lithe and full of movement. She stretched out one of her limbs and touched my bark. The rabbit’s gnaw was nothing like her touch. Hers was the mist of dawn, kissing each of my layers. Her touch was that, but concentrated in one spot. If I could have moved, my branches would have wrapped about her. I wanted to feel her body against mine.

         A second human joined her. He had many of the same characteristics, but his voice was not the voice of the wind, but deeper like the crash of the waves or the sea banging against my cliff. He held her in his limbs as I had wished to do. His mobile limbs encompassed her. His body pulled her tight to his. I wept the sap of sadness.

         Their clothes dropped down about me. Some were flung into my branches, and hovered there, irritating with their inanimate feel. I shivered, but I could not move to jerk them from their perch.

         My mind was too long pondering the unpleasantness of the clothes thrown against my needles. I had failed to see the fall of the humans. When my mind was attentive, they lay upon the ground, fallen trees. I wept to see the beautiful one lying crushed beneath the larger one. I thought they must both be badly injured. Their groans and moans were the sound of an aged tree, one who resists the storm, yet knows his day is coming soon.

         Still, there was movement between the humans. Their dying was prolonged.

         “Why,” I cried to the sky, seeking for the clouds to move away from the sun. The sun, I knew, had strength beyond all earthly forces. The sun could grant them life, if he so desired. But the clouds would not move away. The day grew dark with graying cumulus. I mourned for my human visitors.

         And then, a miracle occurred. The sun broke through, and I used the voice of the trees to plead for the fallen two. “Help these humans,” I cried to the sun. “Give them back life.”

         The sun does not always listen. I have heard he rarely hears our voices now. He has grown tired of the talk of trees, yet that once he listened.

         The two of them rose up, and they lived. They were both pale as grains of sand. Their bodies were deprived of the noble bark of trees, but they lived, and their faces beamed as if by moonlight. They clothed themselves. I felt the loss once more when the touch of even inanimate was taken from me, even though before it had only irritated.

         I received a reward from the soft voiced one. She came to me, and placed her hand on my spine. “You are beautiful,” she told me.

         In all the years and years that have come before, no one has ever said such a thing. I blushed a deeper brown, and needles fell about her feet, in tribute to her velvet touch.

         They left me then, and never returned, but I have my memories. And sometimes when a bird flutters through the sky and comes to visit, gliding into rest on my upper branches, sometimes, I tell him the tale of the day the humans came to visit. He flies away to tell his kin. Perhaps the story has been carried far across the seas. It is a beautiful story, and I am glad to tell it.

         I stand here still on the edge of the cliff. My roots lie deep in the crevice of rock. I withstand storm and wind, and the mists from the ocean deep bathe me at the stroke of dawn. I am the Lone Cypress. I stand guard for all to see. I am proof that trees and men are brothers. For you see, once I spoke to the sun for a miracle, and he listened, and as reward she touched me, and she called me beautiful.

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