Saturday, April 27, 2024

Resplendent tree


Actually, I've been telling anybody who cared to listen that I'd rather live in Upper, where the land is so expansive and neighbors are so far away, they will not be complaining about trees growing so tall they almost touch the sky. In that other place where I grew up, neighbors seem to regard trees as if they were enemies. 

They become very suspicious and cautious when they see a tree growing in your lot untrammelled. It was so infuriating when I heard someone say they were already quite afraid of a tree growing in our lot because it was already so tall, they were afraid it might fall. Then, there were those concerns about electric wires, or trees whose branches already overlapped into the next property. Once, a neighbor actually approached me saying I had to kill that tree growing high near our window because that was a Balete, a habitat for the enkanto. 
So, I said, I wouldn't want to live in that place where people regard trees like enemies. Or something they could cut for firewood. I would like to live in Upper, where I thought I could grow trees as much as I wanted to. I would cover the whole area with dipterocarp, I said. 
But the last time I was in Upper, I came upon somebody I did not know who told me this narra growing high along the roadside might already be interfering with the electric wires and might have to be cut off eventually. I was seething inside. 

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