someone said:
To be able to hear the speech of the trees is a gift I've always treasured.
I said:
You mean the Murmur, the Leafwhisper, the Song of Amber Blood, the Grumbling Grandfather Bark, the way the wind is a free and gleeful messenger?
I realize, saying this, that I can sketch my neighbourhood in trees.
There is the Little Magnolia In Front Of My House who has long been my friend, even before I knew the Birch Lady in back, who has been pining and wailing for her long-dead Birch Lord for years now. Little Magnolia was prognosed to die after serious surgery so that the damn asphalt truck could lay some kind of sealant on the street this summer -- they had to lop off huge amounts of branches all down the street. But Little Magnolia didn't seem inclined to (just like xe didn't when the city cut out huge amounts of xir roots to put in a different sewer cleanout), and just to be safe I took a twig from her and put it on my one real Goddess statue, of Dana. She and I together. I gave some of my own life into that tree. It was NOT GOING TO DIE DAMMIT.
Birch Lady herself... ailing. I can only wonder when she is going to die and follow her single-trunked, fungus-killed Lord. That happened years ago. Seven? Ten? Fifteen? She is still majestic and silver and green, but... balding. Dying. Tired. I need to plant a new sapling. She no longer has it in her to engender any more. Raw milk will not help.
The Other Magnolias up and down the street. The missing Pine who used to be in the yard next door and shade our yard. The tall evergreen across the street. I wanted to say Redwood and Sequoia both, but I don't think he's either, nor is he a Spruce... what is he anyway? I should find out.
The ghosts of Pines that used to tear up our driveway and sewer. They haven't been there since I was... three? four? One of my earliest memories, now reduced to body-sense, the smell of needles, something I can only fully recall if I look at photographs.
The Sweetgum (Maple relatives with spiky balls) I swung from, there, across the street, between one house and the house that used to be
shalora and
twopiearr's.
The Peach tree hanging over the fence of the expensive house on Lime and Yorktown by whom I was gifted one single white donut peach this past summer. People's front-yard Apricots and Cherries, some of whom I have eaten from. Shel Silverstein made a grave error to use a singular article on the phrase "Giving Tree"...
The Other Birch and the Overachieving Persimmon (who blooms in January) at the end of the street. Their roommate in that same front yard, Olive. Olive's cousin at the other end of the block, Olive II. The strange falling, breaking tree at the end of the alley that leads to Starbucks.
The several Ginkgos I pass by every day at work. Some kind of Poplar (?) which I have followed every day since January, and used to do so in the other six years I worked there, like the Plum? Cherry? trees I drove past into the parking garage. Every day. Like watching children grow up, and become adults, and die, and become children again. Year after year. Trees have it good.
The Redwood with a strange haircut, presumably so it doesn't hurt the building it's next to, standing tall next to the Learning Center, probably has been there longer than the building, and was built around. The wailing of the many that were taken out to build new buildings and parking lots. I'm only just now getting used to the new horizon line. The Oaks which have never yet pelted me with an acorn, though perhaps not for lack of trying this autumn -- there, and there, on the patio, in front of the library. The Palms, gloating that here they can soak up the sun without having to deal with the hurricanes.
To be able to hear the speech of the trees is a gift I've always treasured.
I said:
You mean the Murmur, the Leafwhisper, the Song of Amber Blood, the Grumbling Grandfather Bark, the way the wind is a free and gleeful messenger?
I realize, saying this, that I can sketch my neighbourhood in trees.
There is the Little Magnolia In Front Of My House who has long been my friend, even before I knew the Birch Lady in back, who has been pining and wailing for her long-dead Birch Lord for years now. Little Magnolia was prognosed to die after serious surgery so that the damn asphalt truck could lay some kind of sealant on the street this summer -- they had to lop off huge amounts of branches all down the street. But Little Magnolia didn't seem inclined to (just like xe didn't when the city cut out huge amounts of xir roots to put in a different sewer cleanout), and just to be safe I took a twig from her and put it on my one real Goddess statue, of Dana. She and I together. I gave some of my own life into that tree. It was NOT GOING TO DIE DAMMIT.
Birch Lady herself... ailing. I can only wonder when she is going to die and follow her single-trunked, fungus-killed Lord. That happened years ago. Seven? Ten? Fifteen? She is still majestic and silver and green, but... balding. Dying. Tired. I need to plant a new sapling. She no longer has it in her to engender any more. Raw milk will not help.
The Other Magnolias up and down the street. The missing Pine who used to be in the yard next door and shade our yard. The tall evergreen across the street. I wanted to say Redwood and Sequoia both, but I don't think he's either, nor is he a Spruce... what is he anyway? I should find out.
The ghosts of Pines that used to tear up our driveway and sewer. They haven't been there since I was... three? four? One of my earliest memories, now reduced to body-sense, the smell of needles, something I can only fully recall if I look at photographs.
The Sweetgum (Maple relatives with spiky balls) I swung from, there, across the street, between one house and the house that used to be
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The Peach tree hanging over the fence of the expensive house on Lime and Yorktown by whom I was gifted one single white donut peach this past summer. People's front-yard Apricots and Cherries, some of whom I have eaten from. Shel Silverstein made a grave error to use a singular article on the phrase "Giving Tree"...
The Other Birch and the Overachieving Persimmon (who blooms in January) at the end of the street. Their roommate in that same front yard, Olive. Olive's cousin at the other end of the block, Olive II. The strange falling, breaking tree at the end of the alley that leads to Starbucks.
The several Ginkgos I pass by every day at work. Some kind of Poplar (?) which I have followed every day since January, and used to do so in the other six years I worked there, like the Plum? Cherry? trees I drove past into the parking garage. Every day. Like watching children grow up, and become adults, and die, and become children again. Year after year. Trees have it good.
The Redwood with a strange haircut, presumably so it doesn't hurt the building it's next to, standing tall next to the Learning Center, probably has been there longer than the building, and was built around. The wailing of the many that were taken out to build new buildings and parking lots. I'm only just now getting used to the new horizon line. The Oaks which have never yet pelted me with an acorn, though perhaps not for lack of trying this autumn -- there, and there, on the patio, in front of the library. The Palms, gloating that here they can soak up the sun without having to deal with the hurricanes.