Under an Oak Tree

The boy sat and watched the wind dance with the world. The leaves of the old gnarled oak spoke with the wisdom of a thousand tongues, of things they'd seen long ago, long before the boy had breathed. He wondered what they'd say to him, if they could speak. Or perhaps were saying to him, in a language long forgotten. Long ago, he thought, there might have been a castle here, with knights and maids and horses. The red-hot metal sparking in the blacksmith's shop, simultaneous with the hammer's thunder, would have been familiar, homey. And maybe, then, there had been magic. Almost, he could hear the fairies laugh as the foolish princess walked widdershins around the chapel.

The green grass fluttered in the breeze, and the boy wondered what animals had grazed here, once upon a time. A flock of sheep, perhaps, or a herd of cattle; a lone, white unicorn, approached by a virgin milkmaid; anything might have browsed here, then. What feet had walked these ways, under the view of the old gnarled oak tree? Did people stop and rest beneath his boughs, enjoy the shade he'd spent so long expanding? Had princes come and slept there, slept and dreamed of lands so strange and wondrous, words on waking could not capture what they'd seen?

The boy sat, and wondered what the world had been, and could be still.