A Story of How a Duckling Found Her Way Back to her Banyan Tree, and her Mother.
Criteria: E | Mother trees
A conversation between a young child and a tree.
What if sunflowers grew on the sweeping roots of the banyan tree?
“How sunny that would be.”
What things would we find beneath it?
“Treasures”
“Pressed petals and stones.”
Dear Patient Reader,
In PPS#73, How do trees secretly talk to each other?, I explained what the mycorrhizal network is, and how it functions through the words of ecologist, Suzanne Simard. Because I needed something new to talk to you about ‘mother trees’ today, and since the title ‘The Mother Goose and Her Tree’ stuck, and it somehow seemed to fit; it seemed fitting to make it into a story.
This story is about what was supposed to be a duckling taking a short walk to the cotton fields.
Characters
Mother Goose, Little Duckling, the Banyan Tree, and the Roses.
I had a piece of free verse that’s months old now, but I just couldn’t find the right words to continue, and end it. So, this occasioned well, to use it’s beginning words….
~
“Take your voice on a walk tonight, and she’ll tell you secrets under the Banyan Tree.” Grandma Goose often told this tale to Mother Goose. And now, Little Duckling and her brothers and sisters loved hearing it, too.
Little Duckling, whose mother, Mother Goose, so fondly called “Little One”, because she was smaller than the rest, but so different, was more curious than usual today.
“Ma, how do I take my voice on a walk? And what secrets will she tell me under the Banyan Tree?” asked Little Duckling, readily placing her growing wings on her hips. Where she usually kept them, ready to shoot a question or tell her brothers or sisters off.
Chuckling, Mother Goose replied “Simple, if you use your imagination and if you listen closely and carefully to the Banyan Tree, he’ll tell you his secret.”
Grandma Goose, Mother Goose, and all the geese before them had grown up around the Banyan Tree. The Tree was special to them; he had given them safety and shelter throughout all those years. And, had taught them that the forest was connected to everything. This is what this story is about; connection.
A few days later, Mother Goose needed new cotton for her nest. Her kin were growing bigger, and a larger, warmer nest was needed. She decided to send Little Duckling to pick cotton from the nearby cotton fields. They weren’t too far, and the weather was bright and pleasant. Plus, Little Duckling needed a prompt to walk and exercise, her knees were slightly weak.
Before setting off with her blue basket, Mother Goose told her youngest, “Pick the weeds you’ll need along the way Little One. Weeds are resilient and strong. You can chew on them, scratch with them, and strew them along the way.”
“Use your beak to make small marks in tree roots. So that if ever you’re lost, you’ll always find your way back.”
“Plus, you have a small but strong beak. Your voice may be soft, but you’ll be heard. The Forest always listens.”
“As a community in the forest, we are resilient. We stick up for one another, and we take care of each other. No matter if you’re a tree or a duckling. You will be heard.
Us in nature stay together.”
Little Duckling stood listening to Mother Goose, more concerned with skipping with her blue basket to pick her favourite berries. The ones she liked were the sweetest during this time of the month. She knew where the cotton fields were, right next to the old man’s cottage. And the berries were along the way.
“Remember Little One, the three paths at the first crossroads look the same. Take the right path at the second crossroads.”
“Yes Ma” said Little Duckling.
Mother Goose kissed Little One’s warm cheeks, telling her to return back home as fast as Little Duckling’s webbed feet could safely take her.
Little Duckling waddled along the forest floor. Skipping, tweeting a tune, and swaying her blue basket back and forth into the warm, summer air.
“Funny, I haven’t found my favourite bush berries yet. I would have sworn I took the right path at the second crossroads. I’m sure of it.” Thought Little Duckling to herself.
“Let me waddle a little further.”
Little Duckling waddled and waddled, her blue basket in wing. And realised the trees here were different. “Now how do I find my way back?”
Little One had forgotten to strew weeds and beck trees. She sat down and thought.
“Wait, Ma told me that if I follow roots, I’ll find a dwarf’s garden! And hopefully I’ll find a dwarf watering his flowers! He could help me.”
Little Duckling waddled ahead and looked around. While searching she stumbled on a root and fell. She had hurt her wing.
“Oww!”cried Little Duckling, holding her wing. As she got up, Little Duckling saw fine gold lines clustered together. She knew just what they were. She may not find a dwarf and his garden, but she would find a Rose Garden.
Limping, and still holding on to her blue basket, Little Duckling pushed herself through a thicket.
“Roses!”
“A duckling!” said the Roses in unison. “Are you lost?”
“I think I am.”
“You look hurt, let us help you.”
The Roses sat Little Duckling down, filled a cup with nectar, and made sure Little Duckling drank it all down. Then, Little Duckling got up and waddled forward with a brand new mended wing.
“Oh Roses!” said Little Duckling, smiling. “You've mended me", her soft, fluffy face shining brightly. Little Duckling’s beak was a bit more orange than others. But, it made her all the more special.
“Such a shining face you are!” said the Roses to Little Duckling.
There were rustling sounds coming from one direction, the Roses beckoned, and Little Duckling thought it sounded familiar.
“Ma!”
“Little One!”
Mother Goose runs to Little Duckling and checks if she’s alright.
Little One holds tight onto her mother. “Oh Little One, I was worried. It was getting late and you hadn’t come back. I knew I had to come and find you. And look where you are!”
“I’m sorry Ma, I don’t know how I got lost. I must have missed a path.”
“I know Little One. The path may have been changed.”
“But now I’m here with you”.
“Banyan Tree got a signal from his younger cousin downtown! It took me a while to get here, but I got here just in time!”, said Mother Goose.
“Banyan Tree knew I was here?”
“Banyan Tree is our lifeline. The same way that Banyan Tree and other mother trees and father trees take care of young saplings in shaded parts of the forest, they will also take care of you.”
“But don’t waddle too far Little One, even the Forest has its limits.”
“Come now, it’s getting late.”
Mother Goose thanked the Roses, and they filled Little Duckling’s blue basket with pink, yellow, and red rose petals. Mother Goose could make extra nice coats for her children with these.
Mother Goose gently swayed a tired Little Duckling on to her broad back. Tucking Little One’s blue basket filled with petals under her wing. There was a long journey back. But she knew a shortcut. She took in a breath and started waddling.
Mother Goose waddled back home for about an hour, taking a shortcut across Jerry’s Creek. She continued waddling under the shade of the Forest and her Trees. They smile at her and wish her and Little Duckling well and a safe journey home. Swaying their branches and vines to keep her cool in the heat of a summer evening. Nightfall is about to break. She reaches the bottom of her Banyan Tree, and rests Little Duckling in the large cotton nest next to her brothers and sisters. Little One slowly starts to open her eyes, having slept well along the journey, swaying gently on her mother’s back.
“Night’s about to fall Little One”, says Mother Goose. “The Sun’s a bit sleepy. Best close your eyes, we’re home.”
Mother Goose takes a moment, and lets out a deep sigh. She looks up at the Banyan Tree.
“Thank you Banyan Tree”, said Mother Goose with tears swelling up in her eyes. “For as long as I stand Mother Goose”, said the Banyan Tree. They took a long moment to look at one another. They understood each other.
The next day, the Banyan Tree was glad to have Little Duckling back under his shade, playing tag with her brothers and sisters. The Banyan Tree was blooming with sunflowers, golden and brown under the Sun.
Little Duckling looked up, one wing on her hip this time. The other wing held up and high, demanding for an answer. Mother Goose sat with her spectacles at a distance knitting the rose petals into beautiful, comfortable coats, amused. In the most stern voice she could muster, Little Duckling asked “Banyan Tree, when will you tell me your secret?”
Laughing, The Banyan Tree whispered in her ear, “When I’m happy, I bloom with sunflowers. And I’m so happy you’re home Little One”.
The point of this story
The importance of mother trees to the planet. Because of the stability and strength they give to thousands of ecosystems. To other trees and plants, to animals, and to humans. To me, it gives a relevance to fables and talking trees. It allows them to become something not so far-fetched, not too made-up.
What I wanted to point to here, is the importance of trees in the human story. That trees as a collective, are one of our organs. Filtering the air with good oxygen. All this while rooted to the ground. The importance of trees to the climate, and the importance of trees in regulating climatic systems.
The role of the Rose Garden in the story
Gardens represent healing, like the medicinal uses of about 17,810 known plant species across the planet. The virtue of the healing powers of nature is found within The Secret Garden (1911) by Frances Hodgson Burnett. With a magical setting, growth has always had an otherworldly quality. In books of time untold, there is a link between gardens and troubled utopias, fiction and fantasy. Flowers foster dialogue and interconnectivity, a correspondence, a matinal greeting. And for Little Duckling; healing.
Have a good week ahead fellas. Ciao
P.S. FYI a baby goose is called a ‘gosling’ (not Ryan Gosling, but that’s what Google Image Search will give you).
I definitely make reference to the Fairy Godmother played by Billy Porter in the new Cinderella movie. I do agree that this version of a fairytale classic was a necessary update.
“Even magic has its limits.” And the Forest does too.
The illustration of the banyan tree with sunflowers takes from the wise, old banyan tree that watches everything that goes on in the Pamplemousses Botanic Garden, Mauritius. He keeps himself busy.
I highly recommend watching A Dream of Trees, a documentary with ecologists and conservationists Divya Mudappa and T. R. Shankar Raman, and the work they do in the Western Ghats and elsewhere within India’s forested biomes.
P.P.S. Next week’s post is titled “Oiye Captain, There’s a Hole in the Mast!”, which is another storytelling twist on ocean acidification. “Oiye Captain….” will be second to last of breaking down Criteria A to F (next week I’m skipping from Criteria F to G, then back the following week), before heading onto more serious business. But that doesn’t mean we still can’t be whimsical.
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