Оно видело, как проходят века. Меняются времена, меняется...

It has seen the centuries pass. Times change, the environment changes, people change, only a lonely tree near the road lives, lives, lives ... He hears, sees, feels and absorbs everything into itself, and then gives it out to others. At first, a small fragile shoot, such that the surrounding trees did not believe that the small creature would survive. But in spite of everything, the shoot grew, became a small tree, and the trees no longer feared for his life. And then the tree grew by itself. Gradually, the older trees died: some were cut down, others themselves withered. Then a road ran alongside. At first, just a path, then it became wider and wider, until it turned into a real Road with a capital letter. And the tree kept growing and growing, crowding out smaller trees, roots spreading out, driving out other roots. The branches grew, creating a shadow impenetrable for light in summer, in autumn, while the leaves are still green, and the rains have already begun, a reliable shelter from drops. The trunk gradually became thick, until it became impossible to grab even ten people, many animals settled on a tree, in a tree, near and in the roots. And they called this tree the Great Tree. And no one dared to cut it down. Even in infancy, people left him without swinging an ax, feeling the greatness of a tree.

The great saw a lot, knew a lot, remembered a lot. And it remembered everything. He remembered the people who came to hack his friends; animals that came and went, leaving offspring; the winds rushing past, which carried stones off the road, and the tree did not move even a leaf. It remembered a lot. Both sorrow and joy. I saw how women brought babies here so that the Great One would bless their child; how teenagers ran around laughing, developing strength and endurance; how girls and boys, tenderly embracing, kissed in the shade of the foliage, and then asked to be a witness of their wedding; how already wives and husbands asked the Great Council; how old men and women came to say goodbye to him and left with a pure soul and never returned. The Tree has seen many people from birth to death. It was always with them. But not always there was only good under the Great. Sometimes they swore, fought, there was a case of murder ... But it was not for nothing that the tree was nicknamed the Great: those who quarreled - made peace, those who quarreled - healed each other, the mortal wound of the soul and body became a scratch, and then completely healed.

The Tree lived long. Many generations of people have accepted and released. I saw the change of society, I saw the progress of humanity. But everything comes to an end. So the time has come for the centuries-old tree to leave this sinful world. The foliage has ceased to be so thick, one ray penetrates, one drop flies by. The branches no longer held the pressure of the wind and nests, the roots could not cope with the rodents. The turn of the Great has come. The tree no longer had that greatness that frightened off people with axes, but people themselves could not cut it down. They let the Tree die quietly and slowly, expressing their gratitude ...

… After many years, a lonely traveler, passing along the same road, which was named Wooden in honor of the Great Tree, will notice a lonely escape, which has recently escaped from the ground. Fragile and unhappy, who will never grow into at least some tree, but from which greatness will simply glow, even greater than his progenitor. A tree that will pass on all its knowledge to this small but Great escape.
26.12.04
* very old story. Mistakes, yeah, but I don't fix the old *