I climbed a tree once. About ten years ago. A beautiful twisted
grandfather tree, with a sparse thatch of small green leaves. A rainforest
veteran too old to put up much of a fight. I never was much of a tree climbing
kid. Fell out of a few. Branches never seemed to hold me like they did other
kids. But I climbed this tree – the old Booyong, burdened with a couple of
climbing accessories – part rotting trunk, part steel ladder and part Strangler
Fig.
In thirty seconds I was one hundred feet in the
air. I stood in the old man’s canopy, on a small steel platform, underneath one
of his surviving branches, now twisted and gnarled like arthritis. Vines and
air ferns draped across the sky like exotic curtains. Pallid question marks of
mist rising from between distant woolly green hills. A King Parrot whistled
from somewhere close by, and at my level. For a few minutes I was in his space.
A beautiful space. I understood why his calls always sounded so joyous.
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