Long ago,
Before we knew how to write,
Our stories swirled in the winds.
Every blue moon and,
Sometimes sooner,
The winds would collide.
Stories long forgotten slid to the earth and slipped into the dreams of the sleepers below.
And for a moment,
They remembered once more.
Of the wind-held stories,
The one the people are most embarrassed to remember is how the palm trees came to the islands.
Before there were palm trees,
Towering statues with needles and rough,
Peeling bark lined the coasts.
Walking from the village to the water was a journey in and out of shadow.
The needles crunched into the sand,
Creating a million tiny drumbeats with every step.
The people honored the spirit of the trees,
Umsido,
By pouring milk at the roots whenever there was milk to spare.
In exchange,
Umsido let the people use what they needed for wood,
But only what they needed,
To build their homes.
For hundreds of years,
The islanders would touch the sides of their homes upon returning,
Pause and say umsido's name in gratitude for their shelter.
Then,
One still,
Starlit night,
No breeze blew off the ocean,
And the silence on the island became fearsome.
The land began to move in waves,
Back and forth,
And then break in big chunks.
The mountain over which the moon rose caught fire at its top,
And even though fire didn't matter,
It poured like a river down toward the village.
The islanders ran from their homes,
Which were starting to collapse.
What happened in a few moments had shattered their lives.
The villagers huddled together near the shoreline,
And the village elder stomped his feet on the ground and cursed the spirit of the earth for jumping so hard that the world fell down.
The spirit of the earth replied,
I am only doing what I have done my entire existence.
It is not my fault that your people do not remember when it happened last.
The elder then waved at the mountaintop and hollered out its name,
Angrily asking why it turned water into fire and burned the houses of the people.
The spirit of the mountain replied,
I had no choice.
This is what must happen when the land shakes.
With nowhere else to turn,
The elder spun around to the trees from which their burned and broken homes were built,
And swore loudly at Umsito,
Your wood was not good enough to protect our people.
Our homes are destroyed.
What good are you to us?
An unmatched silence drenched the island while Umsito prepared himself to speak.
You have blamed the earth,
The mountains,
And the trees,
The very trees,
That have sacrificed themselves for you all these many,
Many years.
None of us are to blame,
And while you have been whirling around,
Pointing your finger full of fault,
You have injured many and solved nothing.
You have made your response this evening one not of caring or concern,
But one of outward hatred.
We have no more use for you.
And with that final reply,
The islanders watched in terrified amazement as Umsito and all of the towering trees lifted their roots out of the shoreline and loped up into the mountains.
The elder had nothing more to say,
And the islanders were grateful that he was now quiet.
They slept on the shoreline,
Now naked sand and full of holes,
Until the sun woke them in the morning.
It no longer met the shore with a warm orange glimmer filtered through the needles of the trees.
Now it landed harshly upon the land and the people,
With no shade,
No coolness,
And no escape.
Listening to the crying hearts of the islanders,
The elder made the difficult journey up the mountain to seek a meeting with Umsito,
But his planned apology was cut short.
Umsito said simply,
You have not come for your people.
You have not come for our wood.
You have come for a solution that will return you into the favor of your people.
You have not learned,
Elder,
And I am not the one to teach you.
Umsito tucked himself into the side of the mountain,
And the elder was then dismissed to return to the islanders with no hope and no answer.
The following morning,
However,
A curiosity appeared on the beach.
Only about five feet tall,
It appeared to be a man,
Only about five feet tall,
It appeared to be a tree,
But none the islanders had ever seen before.
Its trunk was bent and twisty,
Not at all good for making homes,
And its needles were several feet long,
Fat,
And flopped about in the ocean breeze.
As anyone should do when meeting a living bean for the first time,
The stonemason approached it,
Introduced himself,
And asked kindly if they might know its name.
The tree replied that its name was Pindu,
And that it was the spirit of all trees of its kind.
If the islanders could understand why Pindu was there,
More like him would come and help the people.
The elder moved toward Pindu to reply,
But the villagers had heard enough from him.
The stonemason grabbed him and put a hand over his mouth,
And the villagers all retreated and began to talk.
They spoke for so long that the sun's shadow moved across the beach.
Toward sunset,
The stonemason's wife suddenly stood up and pointed.
The others looked to find that she was only pointing at the children,
Who were doing a silly dance around Pindu.
But the stonemason's wife remained standing and kept saying,
Look,
Look!
The stonemason stood and saw that no one on the island knew the kind of dance the children were doing.
They were bending backward,
Forward,
Sideways,
And waving their arms above their head.
They looked,
In fact,
Like Pindu had overtaken them.
The stonemason recognized one of the children,
A small girl,
Only about three and a half feet old,
And he asked her what they were doing.
She giggled in delight and said,
We're bending!
The stonemason's wife inquired further,
And the little girl said,
It's Pindu's power!
He can bend!
The stonemason's wife dropped to her knees,
With her hands sinking into the sand.
We never bent,
She said.
The earth couldn't bend,
And that's why it broke.
The mountain couldn't bend,
And that's why it caught fire.
The wood couldn't bend,
And that's why our homes are gone.
The elder had grown tired of this nonsense and moved to stop the stonemason's wife from speaking,
But she stood up,
Walked toward him,
And put her face in front of his,
And we never bent.
We could have done anything that night,
But we stood rigidly by while you blamed everyone.
We could have bent with compassion and love,
And we could have been a little bit more patient.
We could have bent with compassion and love,
And forgiveness for ourselves and others.
On this island,
We were the only ones who could bend,
And we didn't,
And now everything is gone.
But when the talking stopped,
The adults could hear the giggling of the children.
They saw a dozen new trees,
Just like Pindu,
Waving and dancing with the children.
Pindu called out to the adults and said,
I will help you.
You can use our fronds for your roofs and our fruit for your food,
But you would be wise to remember that sometimes the strongest is bent.
