To the animals and birds and insects who lived there, it was the most beautiful tree in the world. It had sheltered them and even fed them for many generations.
Nobody could say for sure how old the tree was, because it had been there before most of the other trees in that street.
Some of the possums' and lorikeets' great-great grandparents remembered when the tree had stood in the garden of a house. It had been a low, white house whose front windows faced the river.
The tree grew behind the house, in a corner of the garden, shading the footpath, but because it was a tall tree, the creatures living or sheltering or feeding or nesting among its leaves and flowers had a clear view of the broad stream flowing between low banks.
There was always something happening on the river. In the early mornings schoolboys and girls, or students from the nearby university, took to the water in rowing sculls, practising for the annual regatta.
Later, the blue and white ferries glided up and down the river, or crisscrossed it, taking passengers to work, to school, or simply for a pleasure-jaunt.
One day, a sign appeared outside the house. It was sold, but nobody moved in. Instead, developers made plans to build a block of units. The animals and birds and insects didn't realise that their tree had been sold as well.
They hid in terror when the jackhammers and bulldozers arrived to demolish the house, but miraculously the machines stayed away from the beautiful tree. Sometimes the construction workers sat in its shade to have smoko or lunch, leaning their backs against its velvety trunk.
They didn't know what kind of tree it was, only that its trunk was soft and cushiony beneath their aching shoulders, and its shade was cool and fragrant, especially in early summer, when the trailing branches were covered in ivory flowers with soft bristles, oozing nectar, and the dusty air was sweetened by the perfume of wild honey.
That's when the rosellas and lorikeets arrived, shrieking with delight, and feasted rowdily. The tree would sound like one big carnival from morning to night. When all the brightly-costumed visitors had drunk their fill of nectar, their screeching would die down as the late sun's honey glazed the leaves. The last of the gaudy, raucous revellers - the stragglers - would curl up for the night among the eucalyptus-scented foliage, to be ready to start their picnicking first thing in the morning, before the crowds arrived and the jostling and shrieking started again.
The rowdy, greedy, cheerful flocks of rosellas and lorikeets were seasonal visitors from out of town. They looked forward all year to the summers and their parties in the lovely tree. It was their greatest treat. The permanent residents tolerated them as best they could, and made sure they quietly got their share of the delicious nectar. It was easy for the possums, as they worked the night shift, when there was little competition, although other possums would occasionally sidle shyly up the pale trunk in the moonlight to steal a sip or two. It was the most delicious nectar for miles around.
The permanent residents included mynah birds, who preferred to live peacefully, but could certainly stick up for themselves if they felt their interests were being threatened. Several pairs of mynah birds nested in the tree, as their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents had done. Other birds sometimes came to collect bark for their nests. The bark grew in layers like tissue-paper, only much softer. It felt and looked more like the silk-on-velvet texture of tender creamy rose-petals, and some of the inner layers were a delicate shade of rose.
The tree had survived storms and droughts, and even a flood when the river burst its banks. It had never been threatened by fire, as trees in the wild bush country sometimes were, so the animals and birds and insects felt secure. After all, they had seen the house disappear, but their tree had been spared, so it was quite possible that the block of units would also disappear someday, but none of them could imagine life without their tree.
Instinctively the tree's tenants knew that since a house or block of units could be built in a few months, whereas a tree took years and years to reach maturity, it was easier to replace a building than a tree. Besides, buildings couldn't breathe, as trees could. Trees exhaled oxygen for animals and people to breathe, and trees renewed themselves, day by day, year by year, shedding old leaves as they grew new ones, sloughing off the discoloured outer layers of bark as new, peachy ones appeared underneath like new skin. Trees were the perfect residence for possums, birds and insects, and, as far as they were concerned, superior to any human structure, although you couldn't really compare a living, breathing house to one made of lifeless materials, could you?
One day a man arrived and inspected the grounds of the units. He paused and looked up at the tree, as many passers-by did. It was a tree to admire, to enjoy, and it grew beside a footpath popular with walkers, trailing its jade-green crescent leaves within easy reach of their fingers.
The birds and animals and insects were used to people admiring their tree, just as they were used to guest-birds and spring butterflies sipping the nectar of its flowers, and brigades of energetic bees harvesting the pollen.
The man conferred with the people in charge of the units. "Concrete there," he was heard to say, "and wood-chips here…" Then he went away.
Some days later, machines arrived as they had once before - among them diggers and a bulldozer. The tree-dwellers fully expected the units to disappear as the house had done, and retreated among the hospitable leaves to wait for the noise and destruction to pass.
But to their shock and disbelief, the tree shuddered under a brutal impact, and the shuddering went on and on, as if an earthquake had struck. The birds could not leave their babies alone in their nests, and cried loudly in protest and alarm. The possums had been sleeping, as they do by day, and were caught unprepared. They blundered about in confusion as the beautiful tree began to lurch and topple. The insects burrowed deeper under protective layers of bark and cowered there, waiting for the danger to pass.
Nobody knows for sure how many of the animals and birds and insects who lived in the tree died with it that day. Nobody cared enough to notice. But one tree is not the same as another. Each tree is unique. Like you and me, it carries DNA, the formula for living things, for beauty. And even if the survivors were to find another tree of the same species, no doubt there would be other animals and birds and insects already living there, and who knows if they would be willing to make room for the refugees, fleeing from the bulldozer that was hired to destroy their beautiful tree.
Now where the tree once stood, its generous green arms full of living creatures feasting and nesting and sleeping and resting, there is an arid little square of wood-chips - pieces of other murdered trees.
The creatures who once lived in what to them was the most beautiful tree in the world did not call it by the species name that humans gave it. Humans call such trees Weeping Paperbarks, or by the grander scientific name of Melaleuca Leucodendra - but these important-sounding names were not enough to save the tree.
The creatures who lived in the beautiful tree all had the same name for it in their various languages. To them it was simply "home" - the green and fragrant heart of their living, breathing world.
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If you wish this story to have a happy ending, you can make that wish come true by planting a tree, and watching over it as it grows, so that it comes to no harm…