The dancer sat gracefully, her eyes fixed on the tree. "Why won’t you," she asked, "come dance with me?" The tree stood motionless, not a single stir. The dancer kept waiting for movement towards her.
She perched on the bench, patient all day, staring at the trunk in a curious way. "Why won’t you try dancing?" she asked again. "If you danced, you'd be the Lord of the Glen."
The tree finally spoke, its leaves shook with ease, its voice like a whisper that swells in the breeze. "What makes you think I'm not Lord of the Glen? I was once a sapling, that was back then,
when grasses were seeds, and the forest was new, we settled and thrived as we all grew. We reached for the sky, and rooted in the earth, matured and learned of our true worth."
The dancer, entranced, sat still as the tree, certain she was right, as right as could be. "But how can you rule if you stand so still? You must learn to dance, I’ll teach you, I will."
The tree shook its leaves with a laugh so light. "You don’t understand, not quite. Dancing isn’t just moving your feet, it’s a chance to express, to sway and meet
the essence of feeling, to move and to swing, dancing is movement, it’s more than one thing. I planted my roots so my children could grow, I taught them to dance, to ebb and to flow.
Now look at my leaves, don’t look down, look up at my leaves, they’re my crown! See how they wave in the wind or a breeze, watch how they dance, with such ease."
The dancer stood up and looked to the top. The branches and leaves did not stop. She raised her hands high and swayed to and fro, listening to the wind’s quiet, cat-like flow.
The dancer and tree moved together as one, dancing to the moon, and dancing to the sun. She felt restricted in her dancing boots, yearning to plant herself deep with roots.
"I want to stay here, plant my roots by your tree, so I can dance like you, and be settled and free." The tree shook its branches, spreading wide. "Your roots don’t have to be confined to one side.
Pass on your freedom, the gift to move, you don’t need to stay here to prove that roots can grow deep to give children a home, you can dance freely, wherever you roam."
The music of birds, the wind, and the sea, carried the dancer, away from the tree. But she knew from then on, like the growing of fruits, that tree was still dancing, right down to its roots.