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发表于 2011-12-16 16:12:49
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VOX POPULI: Lone Rikuzentakata pine writes diary in the sky
French entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre was also interested in botany and wrote on the subject. His "Histoire de la Buche: Recits sur la vie des plantes" (The story of the log) contains a passage in which Fabre converses with a chestnut tree that has been chopped down. The tree says to the effect: "I am 70 years old. Were it not for that accursed ax, I would have lived another 500 to 600 years."
The tree then sheds copious tears from its bark. (A Japanese translation by Toshitaka Hidaka and Mizue Hayashi has been published by Heibonsha Ltd.)
This conversation is imaginary, of course. But trees sometimes do "speak" to us, and the lone pine tree in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, has been speaking wordlessly to many people since it miraculously survived the March 11 tsunami. The tree is believed to be 270 years old, which means it came into the world during the time of Tokugawa Yoshimune, who reigned from 1716 to 1745 as the eighth shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate. I wonder if the tree is weeping now, cursing the tsunami that obliterated all its 70,000 "companions" on the scenic, white-sand beachfront. I'm sure it never wanted to become the most famous tree in Japan in this manner.
The tree still looked vigorous in April, but it eventually began to wither due to seawater damage to the root system. Tree doctors recently pronounced it beyond salvation. Like the last leaf in O. Henry's short story of the same title, it will live out its final days as "the last tree," giving encouragement to people in tsunami-devastated areas.
A poem titled "Ki" (Tree) by Michio Mado comes to my mind. It goes: "The tree stands there/ As today's entry in the diary it keeps writing in the sky/ The tree writes every day, addressing the sun/ Never missing a day." Since the March disaster, people have been reading the lone pine tree's diary in the sky.
Its certain death saddens me, but it is not going without perpetuating life. Seeds from its cones have already sprouted 18 saplings. It will be many years before the latter start writing their diaries in the sky, but I feel hopeful. I pray that each young tree will grow up strong like its "parent."
--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 16 |
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