Driftwood By I.V. Mallari

I was a Kakawate tree. I grew on the bank of a river. I had been there for more years than I could remember. And my branches spread out-some of them reaching almost halfway, across the river.

Usually I was covered with green leaves. They grew in such great masses, casting such deep shadow all around, that nothing could grow under me. And when the wind blew, they rustled and danced to their own music.

Once a year I shed off my old leaves. And for a while, I became covered all over with clusters of pinkish-purple flowers. I was beautiful then, and I enjoyed watching my image on the quiet surface of the river.

It was while I was in flower that bumble bees and butterflies came to see me in great swarms. They hovered over my flowers, sucking the nectar in them. They ticked me, but I knew that they meant well. Besides, I liked their company and the strange music they made. And I also needed them. For without them, my flowers could never develop into fruit.

Birds came, too. They danced on my branches, or chased one another in the air above me. They chattered and sang all the time, as they made love to each other. They were wonderful to watch and listen to.

After their love-making, the birds paired off and set about building their nests in the crooks of my branches. Each pair worked together, and they did not stop until their nest was ready.

The nests were made of grass and small twigs, which the birds wove together into what looked like shallow baskets. But they were so strong that they did not fall off, no matter how hard the winds blew.

Soon each mother bird laid her eggs in the nest which she and her mate had build together-sometimes tow, sometimes more. Then she and her mate took turns sitting on the eggs until the eggs were hatched.

The baby birds kept their parents busy form sunrise until sunset. For they seemed to be hungry all the time-crying for food every minute of the day.

But the father bird and the mother bird did not seem to mind. For they were good parents. While one of them kept watch over the nest, ready to protect the young birds from any harm, the other went out in search of food-seeds, small insects, and worms.

This went on until the young birds were able to fly and be on the

A VISION OF BEAUTY By: Jorge Bocobo

A sad paradox in our country is that while our flora is rank and lush, we have practically no parks where trees grow luxuriantly, and our streets and roads are bleak when they should be lined with shade and flowering trees. For many years , I have conjured up in my mind a beautiful Philippines . with rows of fire trees, kakawatis, banabas, floridads, dapdaps, golden showers, and other flowering trees, and also mangoes, bamboos, sampaloks, santols, narras, acacias, and other shades on both sides of our streets and roads.

This dream of beauty for our country is intensified to the point of poignant longing whenever I travel in Europe, America and Australia where I behold such a riot of colors in public parks and home gardens, soothing, uninterrupted green foliage everywhere.

All this vision of beauty can come to a fascinating reality all over our country if we Filipinos will but take up this matter more seriously and assiduously. Let us not emphasize tree-planting but instead caring for trees. Our people, especially the school children, have planted countless trees on so many past arbor days, but the trees have died, for they were abandoned after the first few weeks.

A tree is not just an intimate and meaningless thing. To the man with a fine sensibility, a tree has a personality, as it were, which grows into his life as the years go by. For example. There is on my lot on Villaruel Street, Pasay City, a tall dita tree, as high as a six-storey building ; perhaps it is the tallest tree in this town. It is so high that during the last war the Japanese garrison nearby ordered me to have it cut by at least 5 meters because it might be used by guerillas. I have looked up at it practically everyday of the last thirty-two years. It is a forest tree and this fact alone gives me the sensation of being in a forest, which lends me a serenity of soul and a meditative mood. How refreshing this tree is to me, after the day’s toil and tension, as I look up to it etched against a star-strewn sky! When I see some birds (gray and colorless) nest on its highest branches, unafraid because they know they are safe from human cruelty, I feel that a man’s life should be like that of this tree, shielding the poor and helpless and helping them enjoy freedom.

There are other trees in my lot: sampalok, chico, macopa, caimito, - that give us fruits in abundance. But I wish especially to mention one tree: IT IS AN AURICARIA OF THE PINE FAMILY. Its branches are so symmetrical that people commonly call it the Christmas tree. Indeed every Christmas we cut the top, two meters high, which we use for our Christmas tree. On the very top of this tree, there is always a star-shaped formation of branches and leaves, and the mellow charm of the new day casts upon my soul and indescribable inward peace.

On my neighbor’s lot grows a santol tree near the boundary, so near that some of its branches hang over my lot and almost reach the window of my room. Nearly every morning I greet the dawn through the foliage of this santol tree. On a clear morning the dazzling brilliance or sunrise is subdued by the branches and leaves, and the mellow charm of the new day casts upon my soul and indescribable inward peace.

Some of the leaves of this tree remind me of autumn in America and Europe because they are deep red or golden. When they fall to the ground, they form a sort of Persian carpet.

Throughout my life I have remembered the trees in our homelot when I was a boy in Gerona, province of Tarlac. Most of them are dead and their withered trunks and branches have long been burned in the typical earthen kalang. But they have always been fresh and luxuriant in the garden of my recollections. They loomed before me the ageless sampalok; there was deep gloom among the branches even at noon.