My before-sleep reading these days is The Overstory by Richard Powers. A New York Times bestseller and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, it is one of those books with chapters just the right size for reading before the eyes close, and just the right depth of insight to help one enter sleep smoothly and thoughtfully.
I didnt know the recommendations of others for the book before purchasing it, but even after 144 out of 500 pages, Im beginning to understand. Bill McKibben said, This book is beyond special Its a kind of breakthrough in the ways we think about and understand the world around us, at a moment when that is desperately needed. And there is this quotation from Barack Obama. It changed how I thought about the earth and our place in it It changed how I see things and thats always, for me, a mark of a book worth reading. The book already has me thinking in new ways about trees and my relationship to them.
It has me recalling my years of hiking and camping in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where there are still (but disappearing), stands of white birch trees. I had read the poem Birches by Robert Frost and wondered about the idea of swinging a birch. With some modest instruction from a New Hampshire friend, I learned how to choose an appropriate tree, climb to the right height, and hanging on, throw myself toward the ground, supported by the flexible trunk that swung back up as my feet hit the ground. This was likely the closest relationship I ever had to a tree, and I swung several. Frost writes:
Earths the right place for love:
I dont know where its likely to go better.
Id like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
But there was also the lone oak, that sat by the field, at a New Hampshire camp where I spent several summers. One winter when I was there by myself for a weekend, I climbed and sat in that tree on a sunny afternoon, with the birds, watching the field and woods change colors as the sun moved across the sky and behind the nearby mountain.
When I think about it, I also felt a special relationship with the Dutch Elm tree that sat in our yard, when we first moved into our present home. It provided special shade to that side of our house and was often a resting place for owls at night, some of my favorite birds. Unfortunately, the tree was caught in the epidemic of disease that hit many of the Dutch Elms in the community and had to be removed. I mourned its loss and decided it could never be replaced; which we eventually did in that same spot, with a beautiful Maple.
The Maple has grown quickly and well, amazing in its fall colors and spring greenery. It still has many of its low hanging branches, some almost touching the ground when the wind blows. I have to mow under them, with some difficulty, including scratches and digs into my scalp and arms. But theres something preventing me from trimming. Maybe there is some inner identification with the tree in me, similar to the friend who used to cry to see a tree cut, as if it were a human arm or leg.
When we moved to Brookings there were several plum trees in our backyard and one apricot. They are gone now. Im not sure how old they were, but they had seen their best years before our arrival. There are enough trees of different kinds, shapes and sizes along our alley that we havent replaced those lost fruit trees. The one other tree we have planted is a second Maple. It sits on the opposite side of our house from the first Maple. Its slowly reaching for the heavens as well, and bringing shade and color to our lives.
When I was a kid and singing in the childrens church choir, I remember singing Trees by Alfred Joyce Kilmer as a solo. These are the words:
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earths sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
This poem is still worth reading, or singing.
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