The Trees of the Field Shall Clap their Hands

Lately, every journey has felt like a leg of the long journey to Lahore. Cycling parallel to the flight path, I try to keep up lest I get left behind.

I’m with my children on the bus. The windows have steamed up; it’s dark in the afternoon and damp. The man beside us, a few loose hairs and much dandruff sticking to his woolly jacket, slides his tongue under his false teeth, yellow and furry, extracts them and makes them talk to my children. He does tricks with his funny eyes. My children are mesmerised, horrified. It’s time to get off, I think, but unfortunately, it isn’t.

Whenever I get a break, I walk. I pace Ifield: the lanes, the cricket pitch, the woods, as if the more steps I take the more it will help me get there. I daren’t sit still. There are moments when I walk down paths bordered by tall trees or overhung by boughs when it seems the trees are guiding me, ushering me forwards to the future and I process like a priest to an important duty, solemn though in wellies.

But it is arms extended, hands and faces smiling down that make a tunnel for us now, wishing us well on our journey then closing in behind us, happy to be part of the ambling procession out of the church hall, towards the canteen and onward to Lahore. We are led out by a drummer, striking the dhol ever harder, trying to conjure up a sound from the very depths of the earth. This is Punjab’s almost violent call to joy: village, celebrate your harvest; families, a wedding; nations, independence and freedom; church, a journey.

For you shall go out in joy

and be led forth in peace

and the mountains and the hills before you

shall break forth into singing

and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

-Isaiah 56:12