Illustration by Sharon Calman /Text by Sabine Kunz

If you look closely, you can still see notches in my weathered ancient trunk. I think they were letters and a heart. That was a long time ago. Decades have passed since then. I’ve seen things come and go.

There’s not many of us left.

They used to call us woods. We stood together in huge groups in large areas. There were so many kinds of us. Animals lived with us. We fed them. People lived with us and through us. Animals nourished them.

Eventually, people started coming less and less. The hunters were still there, taking as much as they wanted. And when the humans did come, they took us, whether they really needed us or not.

Today they come to us more often and call us the sacred trees. They come and try to imagine what it might have been like once.
And they tell us about themselves. …the joys and sorrows they carry within them.

We are patient listeners.

But sometimes a girl comes to me. We have become friends and understand each other in silence. I tell her all the stories I have experienced in my ancient life. She will write them down for me. So that mankind will know what it was like… back then, when we were still called forests.