Judges 9

Far away in the East, things were growing in great profusion and confusion.  The trees were worried.  They thought this should be better organised.  They weren’t sure what that would mean, but they thought it nonetheless.  They decided they needed someone to be in charge.  Everything would be better that way.

So they went to the olive tree and said ‘Please be King over us’.  ‘No,’ said the olive tree, ‘I’ve got quite enough to do producing the oil people need to burn in their lamps and lubricate their cooking pots.  Anyway, why do you need a tree taller than other trees?  Where there is light, what need is there for another King?’

So they went to the fig tree and said ‘Please be King over us’.  ‘No,’ said the fig tree, ‘I’ve got quite enough to do producing the fruit people need to have flavour in their months and sustenance in their stomachs.  Anyway, why do you need a tree taller than other trees?  Where there is sweetness, what need is there for another King?’  

So they went to the vine and said ‘Please be King over us’.  ‘No,’ said the vine, ‘I’ve got quite enough to do producing the wine which people need to brings laughter to their tables and conviviality to their meetings.  Anyway, why do you need a tree taller than other trees?  Where there is joy, what need is there for another King?’

So they went to the bramble and said ‘Please be King over us’.  ‘Yes,’ said the bramble ‘that was my plan all along.  Come, dear ones, I will grow more than any of you; rest in my protection and in my shadow’. 

He began to entangle their branches, until their orchards grew dark.  He began to thread around their hedges, until anyone who tried to come in went away bitterly pierced.  He began to smother their paths until nobody could skip along and they grew sorrowful.  In the end, it was all bramble.  And bramble it would remain until the next wildfire comes. 

But the smothered olive tree did not forget the light.  It dreamt of a day its fresh shoots would reach out of the ash for the sun.  The entwined fig tree did not forget sweetness.  It dreamt of the day its new roots would reach down beneath the ash into ground refreshed by the rain.  The overgrown vine did not forget joy.  It dreamt of the day its fragile stalks would grow above the ash and dance in the wind.  And each the same height as each other.

The piece appears in today's Cleethorpes Chronicle.  The pictures of a local tree were taken recently.