Augie
Braude
10/19/17
English
The
Twig and the Bird
Deep in Europe, in a vineyard of
grapes owned once by a king, lay a single oak tree. It looked over the horizon.
It saw
day, night, the sun and the moon. It saw
farmers, and animals, and many grapes. Grapes as far you could see. Past the
little church, and the pub, and the school. This is how far the grapes seemed
to go on for this old oak tree. No animal had ever gone near the tree. For
thousands of years it lay untouched by anything other than the wind, the rain,
snow, sun and moon. It had not been
touched. It was lonely.
But one day on the tree landed a
bird. This was the most elegant bird of all time. It had brown nad white silkey feathers and a
yellow beak and black eyes. To the tree, the bird seemed to have seen war and
peace, just as he had. But this bird seemed to have seen more, it was special.
It left a trail behind it of something that can be described as nothing else
than magic. It flew up to the old oak
tree and landed on a single branch. The tree had never seen something like
this. And then, simply, the bird flew off. The branch moved up and down in the
wind and then to a dead stop. The tree
had died. Its roots that sprung deep in the earth simply stopped working. But
this old oak tree had died happy, for that is the reason it had died.
Now, deep in Europe, in a vineyard
of grapes once owned by a king, lay a dead tree. It had seen day, night, the
sun and the moon. It once saw farmers and animals. It saw grapes past the
little church, and the pub, and the school full of children. But most
importantly, it had seen the most elegant bird of all time, and died of
happiness.
