The Wild Beneath - Tom Raw
Long-listed written pieces of 250 words or under submitted to the 2021 Urban Tree Festival writing competition on the theme of “trees close to you”
The Wild Beneath
Near my house in Toronto is a small park, hemmed in by tower blocks and houses, a subway line on one side, a busy road on another. In it are packed: a baseball diamond; tennis courts; a playground; a shallow children’s pool, filled daily in summer; an area of neatly spaced young trees, mostly maple - shade for picnickers.
And at the back, something else. In an unkempt corner, up against the mishmash of back-yard fences, a larger, messier looking tree: a vast willow. By its base a gentle indentation in the grass sweeps away, barely noticed, meandering gently. The ghost of a little stream perhaps. Willows like to have their roots in running water.
The indentation stops abruptly at the playground. But there a second huge willow looms over the climbing frame - beyond it, toward the subway line, a third. They mark out a route towards the River Don and Lake Ontario, eventually the Atlantic.
I visit this place daily now. It has become my routine - ritual in fact - to pause by the base of the willow, on the bank of the stream that’s no more, and thank the tree. Thank it for putting up with my incursion into its home. Thank it for making me think what this place might once have been, and what it might be in years to come. Sometimes there I sense something else, a hint of something older, wilder, less impassive than the aging willows. I thank it too.
Tom Raw is originally from London. His somewhat patchy CV includes a tiny bit of writing, some trees, and working with wood. Instagram: @raw_tom
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