Seeking Balance

An indigenous lady, bent over slightly from her years of working the earth and carrying loads, cut wood from a couple of teak trees. Trees that once stood majestically across this hilled land, dongarshet, guessing from the girth of their stumps, over a hundred years of age. The trees had been felled around two decades ago. Proof the majestic ones once stood lay in the rich soils of the earth below. Soil that I had commenced to dig at the tail end of the year prior, an attempt to grow back the forest.

From the stumps of the old growth teaks emerged shoots. Shoots that if left alone, would have the ability to grow, once again, into the beautiful massives. Tectona grandis we know for its dense hardwood. Imagine then, what the leaves be to a forest floor! Thick, hairy, and large, some the size of an adult torso. They remain malleable when tender, creating the perfect wrap to bundle leaves/ seeds/ flowers/ crabs, whatever one harvested crossing these lands. Dry, they are extremely flammable with volatile matter of over 80 percent. Should they survive the fires of the hottest months, they would break down beautifully, creating a thick layer of insulation from the heat, and eventually nourishing food rich in oils, carbon, antibacterial compounds, for the earth’s floor. It’s tall and lanky nature makes it a perfect perch for raptors, and roaming spirits shares Dada. It’s these same trees we’re trying to protect, allow them a chance to revive their place in these once forested lands.

I voice my dream to the forest-dwelling lady. She acknowledges. Ties the bundle of wood with a length of the bark of the teak itself, props the weight onto a rolled-up cloth atop her head, and begins her walk home. I watch her bent back and outward pointed knobby knees slowly become a silhouette and eventually disappear.

What an idea, I ponder, as the distance between us increases... requesting a forest-dweller to leave the forest be. And even stranger, that she would comply. No marble would clad her flooring, nay pipes supply her water, nay bulbs would light her home. She would live under the framework of the young teak outcrops, weaved with a roofing of wild grass. Oil wick lamps and the flame from the fire that would cook her meals, would be the lights of her home.

Big corp breaks apart the Russian ice fields to extract oil and gas, destroying the historic route of the nomadic Nenets and their reindeers; fells rainforests to monetize the production of palm oil; burns the Amazon for pasture land. Meanwhile we're choosing yet another upgrade to our phone, selecting another shade of paint for the walls, buying one more plastic bottle of water because this one is cold, dumping all of our waste into oceans and onto land, the same land we live on and grow our food... Yet, to this lady, with weathered face and toughened hands and feet, seeking to build her home with a bundle of teak outcrops, I say, No, let the forest grow.