Monday, July 26, 2010

An observance of trees

I just read an article on the Web site Science Daily about the healing power of forests. They mentioned the cleansing properties of the outdoors, the color green, and how nature has an ability to calm that urban settings can't provide.

And that's all true, but they didn't mention the simple mystery of trees, which I've always been drawn to.

Trees are full of knowledge. We can see it in their rings, what they've been through, how long they've lived.

They soak in nutrients from the sun, rain, and soil, grow without seeming to move, and still provide shade and oxygen, and sap for pancakes. Food and shelter for birds and bugs. Books and beds for people. Just by quietly standing in one place for years.

The older ones are stiff and silent, their bark etched in wrinkles. They are sacred. Saplings are softer, eager, untempered by time but easily bent in the wind.

Where the autumn years bring gray to humans, trees unleash colors like fire, then dim like embers against a setting sun that yawns for winter.

I really don't know where I'm going with this. It just seems like the ancient poetry of trees has been diminished by the duller shade of green it lends to the drooping faces of dead presidents.

1 comment:

Biology Guy said...

I like trees too! They're cool, oxygenating, and they all tell a story, if you are paying attention . . . and, if you understand their language. The language is not that hard . . . much easier than Spanish.