The King and the Perfect Tree

Many years ago, long before historians began writing down our histories, there was a wise king that after many years of violent wars managed to create a prosperous and peaceful kingdom. The kingdom became known for its arts and not the bloody years before the peace. The most talented artists and craftsmen from all over the known world traveled to the capital of the kingdom with the hopes of creating art for the king.

The king was busy most of the day running the kingdom and appointing artists to apprentice with the capital’s top artists. But for one hour every morning, the King would take his tea on a gilt settee by the window that overlooked his hidden courtyard. The courtyard was a small space with a marble fountain in the middle and next to the fountain was a delicate flowering tree. The royal gardener created this space to allow the King to have something beautiful to look at when he was stressed. The area was too small to house a fountain, tree, and bench, so the bench was placed at a window that overlooked the open air space. Originally, it was just a little empty space left over from a palace renovation, but now it is a space of calm within the bustle of the palace.

Everything about this little space held special meaning to the king. The fountain was carved by a master marble sculptor in honor of the first artist festival the kingdom hosted, and the tree had been a gift from his children to him during a Feast to the Fathers when the children were all very young. The royal gardener planted the tree in the court yard and carefully nurtured it for years. The trunk of the tree was just large enough to support the heavy flower and leaf laden branches. The Kings Oldest Daughter named the tree a Deer Flower Tree because she always said that the bark on the trunk was the color of a deer and the branches were covered with flowers. Because of the care of the Master Gardener, the trunk grew as straight as the columns that held up the sacred temple ceilings. The branches drooped down a little and swayed in the breeze like the arms of a dancers that danced in the temple when they danced to honor the Protectors. Such grace and elegance embodied in a tree.

Each Spring, the branches would be laden with elegantly delicate pink trimmed white flowers and vibrant green leaves. This was the King’s favorite look for the tree. The tree was beautiful in any season, but the frothy bounty of leaves and flowers always filled his heart with joy. It moved the king so much that he made the tree in spring bloom the symbol of the kingdom.

The tree was a unique tree in the kingdom and not just because of all the care and love that went into it. It had traveled over mountains and rivers from the far side of the world, to be planted in the royal courtyard. The King’s Children had been gifted the tree from a traveler whose land was so far away that it took him 10 years to travel to the Kingdom. There were no other trees of this type in the entire kingdom.

So the king sat on his settee and sipped his tea while he mused about the breeze making the flowers dance and shimmy. He took a sip of his tea and talked to himself, “This one tree brings me more joy than anything in my kingdom. More joy than anything my artists and craftsmen can ever create. More joy than all the jewels and gold in my treasury, and more joy than all the flowery words written by my poets. My tree is this very moment is true perfection. It is perfect enough for the Protectors. I wish my tree would stay this perfect forever. I feel great sadness when my tree drops a leaf or a petal, for then it does not feel perfect anymore. I just wish its perfection was forever, that would bring me endless joy...”

This king continued his musings for the rest of the hour. He mused about how he should command the tree to stay perfect, he was the king, he should be able to do that. He mused about how the tree reminded him of his children, now grown up and ruling their own kingdoms, and of the late Queen and how the gentle movements of the tree reminded him of how she floated across the room when she walked. He ended his hour of musing by stating that it breaks his heart to see the tree lose petals and blossoms and that he wished the tree would say perfect forever.

The Grand Vizier sat on a stool just outside the door to the room that the king took his tea . The hour of the King’s Tea was supposed to be an hour off for the Grand Vizier also, but the Vizir made it as habit to sit on his stool, drink his tea, and eavesdrop on the King. Upon hearing the King’s lamentation the Vizir came up with an idea to make the King’s wish a reality.

That night, while the King slept in his golden bed, the Vizir had dinner at the forge of the Kingdom’s most celebrated creator of metal art, the Master Smith. The people of the kingdom often sais that here is nothing this man could not do with metal. When the Queen was alive, he would make her delicate jewelry that looked like dainty lace, and he would make little toys for the royal children when they were little. One of the king’s sons had a little toy dog that wagged his tail and wiggled his ears, that toy now sits on the throne of that now grown child in his faraway kingdom.

Together they formed a plan to create the perfect tree and make the King’s wish come true. This would be the biggest creation they ever made, and they began inviting the other master craftsmen from around the kingdom to help. They worked in secret and over the course of the next year, they accomplished their plan.

Every night, they would sneak into the garden and replace any fallen leaves and petals with meticulously crafted metal replacements. They even timed the replacement of the trunk and branches with when the king would be away for three weeks to see the birth and blessing of his latest grandchild. Everyone involved in the project was amazed at how the metal tree kept the illusion of the perfect tree going. It was unchanging and exact down to the littlest detail.

The plan lasted until one morning while having tea, the King saw a little bird attempting to land on a branch. It looked like it kept slipping off and every time the bird’s feet touched the leaves, there was a distinct clinking sound much like something tapping on metal. The King dismissed it as imagination when he heard it. His perfect tree wasn’t made of metal, which was silly. It was a living tree.

Then, one day, curiosity got the better of the king and he hobbled out, he was getting quite old now and walking was starting to get difficult, into the courtyard to look closer at the tree, his royal eyesight may have been fading a little too. As soon as he touched a leaf on the tree, he recoiled in horror. The perfect leaf on his perfect tree was made of finely done silver. He could have sworn that the tree was a growing tree. How long had this tree me fake; a beautiful, perfect fake, but still, not his living tree.

After touching several more leaves, the King called for his Grand Vizir and the Guards. They arrived moments later to find a terribly upset King, “My most trusted adviser, when was my tree removed.”

The Grand Vizier looked about frantically, “Your highness, your tree is still here.”

The king did not look amused at the answer Vizir gave him. He was no fool, there once was a real tree in this courtyard where now stands a perfect metal replica. “Guards,” bellowed the King, “Arrest my Grand Vizier for treason. He has destroyed my perfect tree and betrayed my trust.”

The guards escorted Vizier away and locked him up in the least rat infested cell they had in the dungeon to await the kings judgement. As the days passed, the Vizier began to despair. All he wanted to do was make the King’s wish for perfection come true, he never meant to make the King so angry and sad.

Once the King cooled down, one month later. The king had the Vizier brought before him in the throne room. The king sat on this throne and looked tired. “What do you say for yourself my once trusted friend?”

The Vizier knelt down and crawled on his belly to the King. Every move was painful to the battered and old body of the Vizier, “I never meant to upset you, your royal highness. I only wished to make your wish come true.”

“My wish come true!” yelled the King as he stood up before his throne, “You only wanted to make my wish come true?! I do not recall asking to have my closest friend betray me, destroy my most prized possession, and drag half of my kingdom’s top artisans down with you. I should have the whole lot of you executed at once!”

Tears began to fall down the Vizier's chapped cheeks, “Oldest and dearest friend.” His voice cracked from disuse from the many weeks he spent in the dungeon, “I overheard you one Spring day musing about how your Deer Flower tree was perfection and that you wished it would stay that perfect forever. So, Master Smith and I decided to grant you your wish. He and his helpers carefully crafted replacement leaves and blossoms. The gardeners would come in each morning and replace anything that fell or wilted during the night. And we got to the point where we had to replace the branches and trunk, so we waited until you went to visit your new grandchild, let’s see, that was 6 grand children ago, and replaced the trunk. Since then, it has been just replacing damaged elements. Your tree has been perfect all that time.”

During his speech, the Vizier sat up and shifted so he was sitting on the ground and when he finished, the king came and sat on the floor next to him. Just like they used to sit when they were younger and would casually chat. The King spoke softly, “You did all that for me? But where is my tree now? I have so many questions.”

The Vizier patted his friend’s hand, “Yes, I did it for you. I would do anything for you, if it made you happy. You have been so sad since the Queen died and I just wanted to fulfill your wish for a perfect tree.”

“But I do not understand. My perfect tree was not perfect. It was no longer living and was just replaced leaves.” The King shook his head.

“I have consulted the Priestesses on this dilemma too. They were very wise and explained it to me. Perfection is only found in death. Living things have a fleeting perfection because they are always changing and growing. They get many brushes with being perfect as they evolve. In Death, things cease to grow and evolve. It is only in the stillness of Death that true unchanging perfection can be achieved. Until then, us mortals must accept the tiny, billion samples of perfection that we get to experience. To wish perfection onto something is to give it a death sentence. Perfection is in death,” the Grand Vizier accepted a glass a water from a courier after he was done speaking.,

The King continued, “So by wishing my tree would be perfectly frozen in that moment, I brought about it’s death. This is all my fault! There was no other tree like it in the kingdom and my arrogance killed it!”

Both the Vizier and the king sat and wept for several moments. The room was silent except for the sounds of weeping. Each man was coming to terms with his part in all this.

“Excuse me, I don’t mean to interrupt your majesty,” a soft spoken voice broke the silence. It was the head gardener in his dusty clothing fresh from the garden. In his hand was a branch covered in vibrant green leaves and delicate pink and white flowers. “When we replaced the trunk of the tree, I noticed that the trunk had some damage from a storm about a year prior to when we began our project. The tree was injured and dying. We couldn’t have the tree, but we saved it’s memory.”

The king picked up the flower laden branch as the gardener joined the other two men on the ground. “Oh I see you noticed what I brought with me,” the gardener indicated the branch, “We also began another project when we began keeping your tree perfect, we began to plant the seeds from the tree and grow saplings. You now have a small grove of Deer Flower trees growing and in bloom not more than 15 minutes horse ride from here. It turns out that they like the soil of our land. In maintaining the perfection of your tree, we also gave your tree a legacy.”

The grand Vizier interrupted, “We were planning on your jewel celebrating next year to show you the grove and tell you of the tree’s legacy. Just like your children live on in you in, now your Perfect Tree can live on in the trees at the grove. It is its own perfection.”

The king wrapped his arms around the two servants in wept some more. “My friends, I thank you so much. You have made this foolish king wiser. My friend, Grand Vizier, I will understand if you never want to come back to your job but thank you and I am sorry. I know understand that in order for something living to be perfect, it can no longer be living. I also now understand that we most honor those billions of tiny perfect moments as the blessings they are and not stop something from happening because it may not seem perfect.”

The Deer Flower tree grows all over the land now and remains the national symbol of our land all these years later. The Festival of the Tree honors that single tree made perfect but dead. Just because you think something is perfect does not mean you can stop it from continuing to grow and become other types of perfect.