The Redbud Tree Whispers to Me My Name

A redbud tree recounts her memories of the imprisonment of a seven year old Cherokee girl.

The Redbud Tree Whispers to Me My Name


The apple trees bloomed early this spring . . . Among these trees, I stand on this toe of the Great Smoky Mountains. I, Shantilili, a redbud tree, have been fifty seven years old since last Thursday.

As I stand here, words fill my heartwood, my memory trembles with worry. Matamis? Matamis . . . I cry. Where is my Matamis? Did the soldiers . . . Why did the soldiers kill her father?

I knew Wapitee for twenty five years; no better man stood taller than Wapitee in this great land of Tennessee. If you doubt my memory, ask my grandmother. She knows everything about the Cherokee people.

Grandmother stands just up the hill there . . . Among our people, she is the most ancient, the most honored. Hers, are the only lavender redbud flowers in the Great Smoky Mountains . . . an honor no other could possess. When we are talking in secret, Grandmother laughs and says, "It's only because my roots are in magnesium."

Memories

I can still hear the voice of Matamis in my heartwood . . .

For thirteen years I have stood here waiting, waiting . . . for her.

As each year passes my flowers grow more lonely. Weaker . . . no longer pink . . . brown. In the time of spring they weep, hoping she will return. They wilt and die from worry, a perfume of flowers falling to enrich the earth . . . flowers of barrenness.

The Soldiers

I saw them, the soldiers, crawling like blue ants among the redbud trees. Many they were, and the death peering from their eyes screamed for a victim. I wailed out as Wapitee was killed. The memory was etched into my cambium.

Matamis and her mother were captured and removed from this, their cherished home in the ancient land of Tennessee. So many to steal the life of one man . . . to imprison his wife and child . . . in Oklahoma. I tried to run after them, but my feet were welded to the earth. I remember . . . hearing Matamis scream, "Mother Redbud!"

I could not help her, but up there, on the once-broken and since-healed limb, hangs the cavalry hat I captured from a soldier. My arm is proud.

When I, once more, look upon the face of Matamis, that hat will fall.

Memories

I had a dream last night . . . There, across the meadow, I saw the tall grass move. Could it be? Matamis . . .

The apple trees laugh at my hopes. "She's never coming home," they say. "It is only the wind you pin your hopes upon."

"You are old and ugly," they tease.

"She will never look upon your face again."

Still, I believe . . . I long for the child of my heart. She was seven years old when last I saw her. My heart has grown heavy with emptiness, the burden sometimes twists knots into my arms and legs, my heartwood bleeds . . . only the memories flowing in my sap console me.

Barren Flowers

Long ago, I bore a child, a child after the kind of my people. She was so small when she first sprouted. She was still a flowerless seedling when the drought struck the foot of these mountains.

Oh, how I cursed the drought. My child cried out in her anguish, "Mama!" She could not sink her roots into the goodness of the earth. She withered into the dust, never knowing if her flowers would have been lavender. My sap no longer ran . . . my flowers deserted me for a time.

Grandmother Mist, who swirls among the apple and redbud trees every morning, told me I would never have another child. Sadness filled my heartwood.

•••

But, there was another child . . .

The day she came, I was contemplating the fate of a useless redbud tree when I saw the tall grass moving in the meadow. A voice I heard . . . my heart jumped at the cry of a young girl.

In the tall grass of the meadow, Grandmother Mist coalesced, moving from here and there to where the tall grass rippled and parted.

My heart called my name . . . I gasped in anticipation.

I thought, What hope is there for me? She will not see me; my limbs will not feel the touch of her feet. I have no flowers, I stand here naked among the flowering apple trees, ugly, diminished by the flower-filled beauty of my redbud relatives.

I prayed . . . Please, let her climb me . . . climb me . . . Please?

The tall grass rustled, a little leg stepped into the meadow, and there she stood.

Matamis

"Aie-e-e-e-e-e," she voiced her joy, and began to run toward me. I lifted my chin . . . Hope again dwelt in my heart. I could already feel the sweet caress of her hands and feet as she ascended into my branches . . . Butterflies clutched at my stomach.

But past me she ran, seemingly without knowing my heart was dying. An old wound burst open, and a sap of tears began to seep from the well of my heart. Through the mist of my teardrops, I observed her.

Whistling the song of a whip-poor-will, she gathered many redbud blossoms from a tree nearby. How I longed for her touch . . . She tied a knot in the hem of her leather dress and filled the vessel with flowers from the redbud tree.

Back along the way to the tall grass, through the apple trees and the bluebells, toward me she came. Beside me, she stopped.

"Mother Redbud," she said. "I noticed you have no flowers. Please, accept these I have borrowed for you."

The tears of my sapwood ceased to flow. My heartwood quivered with joy.

As she began to climb upon my branches, I felt that my prayer had been answered.

She Gave Me Flowers

On every branch she could reach, the little one stuck many redbud flowers. I wept at her preciousness. She told me of Grandmother Mist, the ageless one who watched over her. All that spring, she frolicked upon me, telling me her secrets . . . her name. Every day my eyes looked upon her.

In the early mornings, Grandmother Mist swirled around her. All that spring, she and I became dear to each other . . . at the last, we loved each other. In the latter time of the dropping of leaves, I sensed, upon my branches, the buds of flowers grown anew. Matamis, I whispered in my heart. You have given me flowers.

But on this toe of the Smoky Mountains, as the apple trees laugh, I stand weeping. Weeping for Matamis . . .

In the time of flowers every spring, that is when my heart cries the most. I cry for myself, at what I have lost, but most of all, I cry for Matamis. And deep in my heartwood, I whisper her name. Matamis, come to me.

Sweetwater Creek, Colorado

It had been almost nine years since she had escaped from the reservation in Oklahoma, thirteen years since she had heard the Smoky Mountain bluebirds sing, and still the smell of the mountain thorn rose lingered in her heart.

By the side of Sweetwater Creek she sat, her feet in its cool water. Nearby, willow trees shaded her as she thought of the song she had just sang. The song of a redbud tree in Tennessee. Tears fell from the heart of Matamis as she thought.


         If I listen closely

         When the wind has silenced herself

         I can hear Mother Redbud

         Whisper to me my name

         Matamis, she whispers

         Matamis

         You have given me

         Flowers.


         Matamis

         She murmurs

         Above the sound of an apple being chewed

         In the still of the night when all is revealed

         On an east wind her words are carried

         Matamis

         Run to Shantilili

         Little one


         Aie-e-e-e-e

         The Smoky Mountain redbud tree

         Whispers to me her name

         Come to me little one

         On all my lonely days and nights I miss you

         In Tennessee I await you


And she thinks of her lost mother and father . . . her longing . . .


         Oh father

         Your daughter Matamis calls to you

         From beneath a sky of blue

         Hear her words

         Sing for her once more

         Hold her again father

         In your arms

         Teach her

         The ways of your people

         Wipe away her tears

         Cause her to smile


         Mother

         Come to me

         Hug me tight

         When I think

         I am alone

         In the wilderness

         Of night

         Whisper in my ear

         Beneath God's starlight

         Your words of love

         I long to hear.


And her heart cries of longing, a longing to once again walk among the rhododendrons as Grandmother Mist swirls around her ankles. She longs to whisper again to the lovely Tennessee moon . . . to hear the bluebirds sing and to cry out her words of love to Mother Redbud. And as the willows weep beside her, she hears the call of Mother Redbud. Matamis . . . Matamis. The words echo in her empty heart.

Tomorrow, she thinks. Tomorrow, I will go, to once more, hear the bluebirds sing.


Word count 1,482 . . .