Ghost gum

In the space where a front fence would be if we had one, there’s a towering ghost gum. At least 20 metres tall, it stands out among the masses of slender eucalypts that crowd the outer suburban valley where we live. I stand under the tree, craning my neck to see beyond its scattering of branches. Where once birds played among the leaves, there are now six jagged wounds. High up, a gently moving canopy of leaves leans to the left, like a woman with her hair falling over one side of her face.

When we bought the house my thoughts edged around the possibility of it falling – right into our house. But as time went by and nothing so drastic happened I began to appreciate its beauty. I fancied it saying, “Look at me”, inviting me to admire the way the sun caught the broad- brush sweeps of orange, gold and brown bark that played hide and seek with its creamy trunk.  Backdropped by the night-dark eucalypts, it kept a ghostly vigil while I slept.

In February, as the northern hemisphere throws off its winter snow and breaks out into fresh green and colourful flowers, my ghost gum’s lovely bark begins splitting and breaking, revealing its creamy trunk streaked like scar tissue or stretch marks left after giving birth. As year followed year it seems to me that this subtle, yet spectacular shedding, was painting a Lenten story in God’s Australian sign language.

One Autumn evening a few years ago, I heard a loud crack and looked up to see a very large branch falling, ever-so-slowly, onto the front drive. There it lay in the silence, the noise of that crack still ringing in my ears, lesser branches scattered carelessly all around it.

Right through the spring the ghost gum had shed its winter bark ready to absorb the summer rains, but that year they never really came. In the long, hot summer its roots struggled to find water pockets deep in the rocky ground. Gum trees self-prune, which frees up sap to flow through the spreading canopy to the furthest tips of the longest branches. Not for the first time in its long life my tree knew it was time to let go of another branch.

That was six years ago and my ghost gum is still there, its creamy white trunk stained with rusty patches, like corrugated iron left out in the rain. Where there were once six wounds, now there are seven. In time, a pair of lorikeets, delicately boned and beautifully feathered, built a nest in the hole left by the fallen branch. They come and go, flashing life and energy in exchange for shelter, bringing value to what might appear valueless.

My ghost gum might look lopsided, but it’s still vibrantly alive. Deep inside the trunk the sap runs strong and new life still continues to flow through the spreading canopy to the tips of the furthest branches.

It’s telling a story God has painted in Australian sign language: your story, my story, and maybe, a Church story too.

Judith Judith @judithscully.com.au