The Gingko
This is the most ancient of all trees. It has been in the world since the age of dinosaurs.
They say that its leaves prevent asthma, calm headaches, and alleviate the complaints of aging.
They also say that the gingko is the best remedy for a bad memory. This of course is proven. When the atomic bomb converted the city of Hiroshima into a shadowy desert, an old gingko fell dead near the center of the explosion. The tree was left as charred as the Buddhist temple which the tree protected.
Three years later, someone discovered that a tiny green light was rising up out of the carbon. The dead trunk had produced a shoot. The tree rebirthed, opened its arms, flowered.
That survivor of the killings is still there.
Just so you know.
Eduardo Galeano
Uruguay
(Translated by yours truly.)
