James Parsons
718-768-3321
jlpv@mindspring.com
http://home.mindspring.com/~jlpv/

The Trees Had No Leaves
By James Parsons

Once upon a time, which is to say a long, long time ago, which is to say even before your great-great-great grandparents were children like yourself, the trees grew, and the grass grew, and the stars shone at night just like they do today. But, way back in that beginning time one thing was a little different. The trees had no leaves. They had trunks and bark and roots and branches, but they didn’t have any leaves on them. Not in the winter, not in the fall, not in the spring, and not even in the summer.

By the ocean on a beach at the bottom of a hill where the trees stood in the forest without any leaves lived a brother and a sister named Oki and Oku. They were the first brother and sister that ever lived, and so they could do whatever they wanted all day and all night. Oki had a little wooden boat with two oars and two seats and a basket in it, which he rowed on the water. Oku had a long bamboo stick with a string and a hook on one end for feeding worms to the fish with, and a square metal cage with a door on the side and a long rope on the top which she filled with buffalo wings and dropped over the side of the boat to feed the crabs with. Oki and Oku were very smart and very kind and they always talked to all the animals and plants and bits and pieces of the world in a polite fashion such as, “How do you do, Fishes?” and “Very well, thank you, Crabs.”

Without any leaves the trees looked pretty much the same all the year round. They never made very much shade to sit under and count bugs. They never made much of a gentle rustling sound to comfort you when the breeze blew through them. They never dropped a plush blanket of soft dry crackles to be pushed into big piles and jumped in. They were never any shade of green or gold or red or yellow that you could stare at over your head as you walked down an empty lane, which meant they never let you know when the sun was going to warm and wake the Earth up in March or cool and tuck the earth back to sleep in September. The pines and the oaks and the maples and the rest all looked pretty much the same with their long brown fingers stretching out and up toward the sky.

Not many animals and other folks lived with the trees back then. Without any leaves it wasn’t very private living in a tree. Everybody could see you from the ground and from the sky and from all the other trees, even if the you were doing something embarrassing like brushing your teeth (with the white, frothy drool hanging down) or folding your laundry (with your bright, white underwear neatly pressed). If you wanted to have a quiet time when your parents couldn’t tell you to tie your shoes and sit up straight, or if you wanted to have a secret place to wait and plot and pounce when someone walked by (like a rich Duke or your sister), you couldn’t do it very well in a tree without any leaves to conceal you. So, the trees were pretty much by themselves, except for a few squirrels who picked up a nut or two on their way home for dinner and a few woodpeckers who were anxious to get their wood pecking in before five o’clock. So, the birds and the squirrels and especially the leaf-eating caterpillars all had to live somewhere else, like on the ground or in a bush or in an apartment, where they could have some privacy and something colorful to look at and some grass and dandelions in their salad. Oki and Oku mostly stayed on the beach.

The trees used to stand together in their forest at the top of their little hill that looked out over the little beach that looked out over the vast ocean that stretched all the way out to the sky where the sun came up in the morning and the stars all shone at night all the way from the horizon right up and over the trees on the hill. There were a lot of stars, and the sky was much more crowded than it is today. You could barely see the deep dark sky for all the stars in the way of it. The trees used to stand on their hill and enjoy the twinkle and glow of the stars, which slowly danced across the sky as the year went on, making a whole string of lively pictures of kings and giants and dragons and kittens and other dramatic scenes.

Then one night a remarkable thing happened. Out amongst all the stars twinkling and dancing slowly up the sky, one star lit up extra bright and dashed or rather streaked or rather fell right down out of the sky and down, down, down into the ocean way out where the sun came up each day. It was so far away that there wasn’t any splash, and none of the trees on the hill could see what had become of the star. “Heavens to Betsy!” said the trees.

The next night the star did not come back into the sky and dance slowly up and over the hill with all the others. The trees watched very, very carefully to see if it would return, but it didn’t that night and not the next and not the next and not again for a whole week. The next week the trees were still watching very carefully when another remarkable thing happened. Actually it was the same remarkable thing happening again. A second star, this one way up almost at the very tip top of the sky over the hill, lit up extra bright and streaked and dashed back down to the very edge of the ocean where the sun came up each day. As it fell it made a long tail of light behind it, like a bright gold tail of a parakeet flying out of the sky and landing on some distant tropical island or a boat or something too far out in the ocean to see where it was going. Wherever it was headed the star disappeared, and its tail followed it, and the trees realized that that star and the first star might not come back into the sky after all. “Good night, Nurse!” said the trees.

So, for many, many nights the trees watched the stars, and some nights the stars all stayed put and danced right up the sky from the horizon all the way up and over the hill, but every so often another star would go streaking and streaming down the sky out into the ocean. And as the nights went on and on it would happen every not-so-very-often that a whole party of stars would come down together all at once. This was very pretty and exciting, and the trees enjoyed it very much to see all the golden tails zipping and flitting down the sky. The trees would try to guess which star was going to take off next, or who would win in a race between a star from the dragon picture and a star from the kitten picture. On very exciting nights some birds and bugs and bears and deer and so forth would join the trees and watch the display and have a cookout or play some patriotic marches. Oki played the reed whistle, and Oku played the bassoon with exceptional skill.

There were still too many stars in the sky to even count how many years it would take to count how many stars there were, but as the nights went on and on and the stars continued to streak and drop and not return, the trees did start to wonder where the stars were going and what had become of them and if there was anything good or bad going on and what should be done about it if there was.

It came to pass at long last after one particular night such as that that Oki and Oku were out in the little boat. “Oki,” said Oku. “If you please, row this boat all the way out to where the sun comes up in the morning. I want to see if there is really a tropical island or a boat or just where the stars have all been going.”

Oki rowed and rowed and rowed and rowed and rowed some more, until the little boat reached the edge of the ocean where it was tucked in like a blanket on the edge of the world, and still there was no island or boat or anything else to be seen. It had been a long trip, and by the time Oki turned around it had started to grow dark. The stars came up from where the ocean tucked itself in and danced up the sky all the way back above the little beach and the little hill with the trees, even though neither Oki nor Oku could see their home so far away.

As Oki started to row back a faint glow came up out of the water. It looked like the stars that were right there next to the horizon might be reflecting off the waves. Oku leaned over the edge of the boat to see, but there was something of a surprise down there. “Oi!” said Oku. Oki also leaned over the side and also saw the surprise and said, “Also Oi!”

Floating and drifting just beneath the surface were a constellation’s worth of stars. Some of them were glowing and twinkling and white like the stars in the sky, but very faint. Most of them were every sort of shade of fire -- yellow and orange and gold and red and russet and burnt umber and sienna -- and some were the color of old coals -- brown and gray and charcoal. As Oki and Oku gazed down at the stars a few of the brightest ones faded just a shade or two. This was what had become of the stars that streaked out of the sky.

Oku reached down into the water and lifted a red star out. It was just the slightest bit warm in her palm, and she set it gently in the basket in the bottom of the boat. Oki leaned over too, and picked up a yellow star, one whose twinkle had just then faded, and when it came out of the water a little puff of steam rose from it. Oki’s hand did not burn, but he was quick to lay that star in the basket, too. Oku picked up a gray star. It was cool, and the edges of it crinkled and wrinkled, but Oki smoothed it out as well as could be done and set it in the basket. Together they gathered all the stars from the water until the basket was filled and the bottom of the boat, too, and Oki and Oku had to rest their feet on the seats so as not to step on anything.

Oki rowed and rowed and rowed and rowed and rowed and rowed some more, until at last the little boat came up on the little beach. Oku took the basket of fallen stars in one hand and all the rest piled in the other hand and on Oki’s head and shoulders and in both her pockets, and they carried the stars up to the trees to show what they had found.

The trees were very excited and interested, and they began to blurt out a million questions all at once. “Where did you find them?” and “What were they doing there?” and “Why is this happening?” and “Is it good or bad?” and “What should we do?” and things of that nature. Oku said, “We found them in the ocean where it is tucked in like a blanket at the edge of the world, and other than that we don’t know anything. Why don’t you ask the stars your questions while we go and feed the fish and the crabs?” So, Oki and Oku went back down to the beach and left the trees and the stars to sort things out.

The trees asked all of their questions all over again, but in a little more orderly fashion, and the stars that lay dripping and drying on the hill answered them. The stars said, “We have been stars in the sky for a very long time. It is a lot of hard work to dance and make dramatic scenes and climb ever so slowly up the sky every night, but most of all it is very, very cold out there in outer space. That is why we glow so brightly with a brilliant white fire that twinkles like we do. We are trying to stay warm.

“Well, lately it has been too much for some of us. We are tuckered out, and we are having a hard time keeping our fires burning, so we decided to throw all our last little bits of energy into a streak and a tail and then go back down the sky for a little nap and relaxation. But, when we got down to the bottom of the sky and landed in the ocean we got all wet, and it is very hard to get the fires started again with all the dampness. The stars that have just come down are still bright, but as they float they grow soggier and cooler and turn to yellow and orange and red and brown and finally to black. We have just been floating there and thinking about what to do instead.”

The trees were fascinated by this story. “Good Gravy!” they said. They said that they would also try to think of what the stars could do next. In the meantime, they would ask Oki to please be kind enough to row out to the edge of the world and Oku to please pick up any extra stars that should happen to land in the ocean and bring them back to the hill until a better place could be thought of. The children agreed, and the stars were thankful for the help, and the trees set themselves to thinking.

The trees thought all winter long until the springtime came, and Oki and Oku built up quite a pile of old tired stars there on the hill. In the spring the birds started to sing, and the grass started to grow, and the flowers started to bloom, but the trees just kept on thinking. The stars on the hill, however, were quite bedazzled with all the colors and life and bright changes that were going on. The stars asked the trees, “What do you do for the spring, Friends? Don’t you have any exciting changes to make?”

The trees replied, “No, no, no. We get a few more visitors this time of year, but otherwise we’re pretty much just the same.”

Now, the stars began to think. The stars were ready to do Something New, and all the newness of the spring was inspirational to them. The stars said to the trees, “We would like to help you redecorate for the springtime. We think that you could use a bit of color and excitement after you have been so kind to us.”

So the stars called to the children and said, “Please bring us a bucket of your favorite color, for we have a surprise to give to the trees.” Oku mixed up a bucket of the richest green, much more impressive than the green of any grass or bush, and brought it up the hill. Oki picked up one of the stars by the little leftover stem of the tail it had grown when it streaked down the sky and dipped it into the bucket. He drew it out and handed it to Oku, who lifted the star high into the branches of the nearest tree who took it firmly by the tail and held it in the warm sun. The green points of the star were beautiful against the blue sky, and all the trees gasped and cheered for the pretty jewel.

As they worked, dipping the stars in green and handing them out to the trees, the trees began to ask for their favorite kinds. Some trees liked three-pointed stars, some liked five points. Some preferred a streamlined star like a spaceship, with rounded corners or with daring jagged edges. Some trees, the pines, even preferred to just take the long thin tails without any stars at all. It was like a giant day of dress-up. “You are lovely,” said the trees to the stars.

“You are lovely,” said the stars to the trees.

The trees were soon covered in bright green stars. There were so many stars on the trees that you couldn’t even count how many years it would take to count all of them, and it was hard to see the bright blue sky for all the stars in the way of it. The trees and their stars became the envy of everyone around. The squirrels and the birds and the caterpillars all came out to the hill. “You are all so lovely!” said the animals to the trees and stars.

The children liked the little beach and the little boat and didn’t want to leave them for the hill, but on certain days Oki liked to climb high into the branches of a tall tree and hide in the coolness of the shadows and the breeze. Sometimes Oku would climb all the way to the very top and hide just under the uppermost leaves. When a bird would fly by Oku would stand up straight and shout, “Oi!” as a surprise, and Oku and the bird would practically fall out of the tree with laughing so hard. Oki laughed, too.

As the summer passed the stars were warm and comfortable and loved their new home. At night they stood with the trees at the top of the hill and watched their brothers and sisters dance up the sky and portray dramatic scenes of kittens and dragons and so forth. In time however, the chill air of autumn set in, and the stars began to shiver. It began to feel like the cold, cold, cold of outer space, and they wanted to try to warm themselves again. Having rested and recuperated and dried off all summer, they were able to start a little glowing fire inside themselves. It was just a little yellow glow, but it soon melted off their gorgeous coat of green, till all the trees were covered in little fiery stars.

But, the stars were still old and tired, and the fires cooled quickly. In a few weeks they faded to orange and red and burnt umber and sienna, and just as they had in the sky, the stars began to let go and drift back down to the ground for a nap. The squirrels and the birds and the caterpillars mostly went back to their apartments, and Oki came up the hill to see what was the matter. “Nothing is the matter,” said the stars and the trees. “We have had a wonderful time, but we the stars need a rest and a recuperation.”

Oki thought about this and said, “Oku and I will come back in the spring with a bucket of color and set you all up together again. In the meantime, I have been thinking about you stars here on the Earth. I think that you are something new and not like the stars in the sky anymore. You left the sky to come down to the ocean, and then you left the ocean to come in the little boat, and then you left the boat to come up the hill, and then you left the hill to go up in the trees, and now you are leaving the trees only to come back again next year.”

Oku came along and listened to her brother. She thought a careful thought and said to the tired old stars, “Since what you do is what you are, you should be called Leaves, and that is what I am going to call you.”

So that is what she did. And Oki did, too.