The little red bird visited me very often. She would leave her nest three miles away, and flit over to my flaky, auburn trunk. She came on both resplendent days and gruesome rainy days, her wings flapped continuously until they reached my branches. The Robin would sit in my shade and eat the aphids and tent caterpillars that clung to my bark- she was a friend.
I am often lonely and bored; the sun's gaze can be both ravishing and tiresome. The moisture of the misty air and the persistent wind wears at my comely appearance. The Robin would keep me company, whether or not I was in presentable condition. She would shower me with adulation and affection, which I knew was often to make me feel more at ease.
I used to tell her stories about the passing days. It's surprising how much you can learn and see standing in the same place for 180 years. I remember the little red bird once asked me,
"What did the world used to look like?"
I remember how it looked when I was just sprouting out of the ground, feeling the coarse dirt around my wee branches. It was beautiful- vast and wide, full of colors and textures and sounds. Things changed quickly and quietly, and with every leaf that fell during autumn, it seemed like a few minutes before a new bud would spring back up in it's place.
The Robin would tell me of the surrounding world- more than just fields and bushes that I could see. She told me of the villages, houses, and the tall mountains that reach higher than I can. I longed to be able to walk away, to bring my roots above the soil and explore the wondrous world around me. I've heard rumors from the other trees; the pines tell me that there are fields of flowers and rivers that flow across the country. I overheard the willows talking about something that they call the Ocean. I asked the Robin and she told me that she saw it once. She told me that it's a watery blue that she'd never seen before, stretching as far as the eye can see.
"I wish I could show you," she said. "It is most magnificent."
I knew that I would never speak again when the little red bird left. I knew that one day, this moment would come, but I didn't expect it to come so soon. I sat in my clearing, awaiting her melodious voice, and her sharp, excited song. She never arrived. Nor the next day, or the following. It was then that I realized I would never see her again. I wanted her to tell me more; more about the skies, the other birds, the fields of geraniums and wheat- more about the Ocean.
Will I ever find a friend like the Robin? I often wonder if she truly knew what admiration and reverence I had toward her. Maybe someday, when I am older and wiser, or when all my leaves are dead and gone; maybe when my bark has been nearly pulled away, or when all that's left is the remains of my once luscious crown and wispy feathers of sapwood. Maybe someday.