A Little Heart

There were four tall trees

There were four tall trees by our home.

In winter, they looked like great upturned lungs in the sky.

I loved them dearly.

Then a man came.

He was all alone.

He was driving a truck with no markings.

He had a chainsaw.

He climbed right to the top of the first tree, and cut the top third of it right off.

No preparation, no estimation, no hesitation.

It fell to the earth with a terrible crash.

Then he cut off all the other branches.

“It looks like a little girl who’s had all her hair chopped off,” said a neighbour.

Someone went to speak to him.

What he was doing was dangerous, surely.

No safety equipment, no signs to warn passing pedestrians.

Branches hanging from power lines.

The man with the chainsaw was aggressive, angry. 

He seemed disturbed, sad.

He shouted, growled and spat.

Someone called the council – they suggested sending an email.

Someone called the electric people – they came to take a branch that had fallen on the line.

Someone called the police – they were too busy.

The sad man kept cutting the trees.

One day he started cutting early, long before dawn.

He climbed up high in the dark and the rain.

I called the police again, and this time they came.

But when the police arrived he had gone.

So the police left, and he came back.

The people in our building stayed inside.

"If this is happening, then maybe it's for a good reason?"

"The trees must be kept in check, he must have the authority."

"Surely he knows what he's doing, that's why he doesn't have a helmet"

I went out to speak to the man, gently.

He wouldn't tell me his name, or where he was from.

He said I should speak to the man in the big house.

So I went to speak to the man in the house. 

I was angry and scared, but I spoke to him like a friend.

I was kind to him, and he was kind to me.

He had asked the man to cut the trees, because the branches might fall on cars.

He agreed that the man was cutting the trees too much.

He worried it would spoil 'the look of the area', and was sorry for what he had done.

So he asked the sad man with the chainsaw to stop.

Now there is one tall tree by our flat. 

Its leaves are coming through now.

I love it dearly.

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At the moment, all around the world, we are cutting down living trees to protect dead machines.

Even if we love the trees, even if we feel sad when they are gone, we don't value these trees, either in our markets or our laws.

We don’t recognise their role in keeping us alive.

We believe that the people cutting down the trees must have a good reason to, so we don't intervene.

And if we do intervene we do so trusting that authorities will do the right thing, and shrug when they do not.

Without meaning to, we are choosing death over life. Our own death, over our own life.

We need to keep the trees alive, for our own sake, but also because they are lovely.

Sometimes all it takes is a little courage and kindness. 

A little heart, for our trees.

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By Paddy Loughman, author of Notes On The Mend.

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