The Palm Tree and the Bamboo

On the edge of a village in the green country grew two trees. One was a palm — tall, straight, glorious, with a crown of fronds that the whole village could see from the river. The other was a bamboo — slim, ordinary, hollow inside, who bent at the slightest breeze.

The palm tree looked down on the bamboo and laughed every morning. "Look at you," he said. "A reed pretending to be a tree. When the children pass, they cut you down for fishing poles. When the wind blows, you bow as if begging. I am the strong one. I do not bend for anyone."

The bamboo only swayed and said nothing.

One evening the sky changed colour. The cattle ran for the bush. The women called their children inside. The elders looked at the clouds and said, "This is not a wind. This is the visit of an angry ancestor."

The storm came down from the hills with the sound of a hundred drums. Rain struck the ground sideways. Trees in the forest fell with the crack of breaking bones. The palm planted himself harder and harder against the wind. "I will not bend," he said through his teeth. "I am the strong one."

The bamboo bowed all the way to the ground. He bowed left, he bowed right, he lay almost flat. He did not fight the wind. He gave it the whole road.

All night the storm raged. Toward dawn it passed. The village came out to count what was lost.

The great palm tree lay on his side in the mud, his roots torn up like the hair of a sleeping child. His proud crown was scattered across the field.

The bamboo stood again, swaying gently, hollow and humble and whole.

A grandmother walked through the village that morning and pointed. "My children," she said, "look well. The tree that would not bend is the tree that is broken. The tree that bowed all night is the tree that drinks the morning sun."

And so it is among people. The proud man stands stiff against every wind — the wind of correction, the wind of changing seasons, the wind of new ideas. He looks strong until the great storm comes. The humble man, who knows how to bow and rise again, is still standing when the village wakes up.