I knew I would love my house when I met the grandfathertree, a 250-year-old oak in the back yard.  “I have seen things!” he introduced himself.

I am privy to a few of the things he saw, some through art,most via hearsay.  He whispers gossip when I do yoga on his crispy fall leaves or meditate with the crows in thesnow.  Theneighborhood is alive on many levels and his height and depth assures he missesnothing.  Bugs, birds, worms, marauding coyotes and humans. I can’t tell you everything, because you have to speak tree tounderstand, and if you speak tree you already know.

He tells the neighbors about me too.  It’s part of the deal. No secrets in thegarden.

A maple tree brushed my window when I was a little girl. Shetoo whispered information to me, what happened before me, what was happening atthat very moment that my feeble human senses couldn’t detect.

I spoke tree better then than I do now. 

It was, in fact, my first language. I didn’t speak Englishuntil I was four and everyone thought I was going to be a big problem. “Jingeleish”I called it. But here’s the secret: I learned more from maple tree than I didfrom the nuns.  Sometimes I feel thatwords get in the way of understanding. And I’m a writer. I’d probably make abetter tree.

I went back to that house as an adult.  It looked like a crack house. Boarded up. Ashadow came out, wrapping itself around me, taking my measure, before going upin smoke.  A branch from  the maple tree wasgrowing through the bedroom where I slept as a girl. Punched right through. Ilaughed and  called to it, sure she waslooking for me—I had so much to say!—and she was, and she filled me in on whathad happened since, her orange leaves rustling in tree song, her old branchescreaking from the weight of stories which we scared each other with.  Happy Halloween.