Grandmother’s Tree Monument valley

click to enlarge

And now, as the Python’s used to say, for something completely different. Trees, especially old trees, have always held a special place In my heart, as it seems to in many others also. I always stop and photograph them whenever a particularly interesting example appears. This one was shot in the backcountry behind Monument valley. When I do see an old tree that has struggled and survived it brings out the poet in me. The only problem with that is I can’t write poetry worth a damn so I spent a little time wandering through the land of the poets looking for examples that say things about these old trees that I can’t put into words myself.

A Tree

Every branch shaking, shifting, and falling in the icy wind,
A tiny leaf at the very end holds strong,
Why am I here, questioning wondering waiting, for that final pulse that will blow him down?
But in that tree was a force, a force of life, a force of strength, a force unmatched by the icy wind.
That tree was a young tree, a tree that never crossed roots with wild bushes,
Bore fruits desired by many, tasted by few and discarded by the very planter,
Questioning why am I here, questioning is this the only way,
Now the broken branch begins to fall, now this tree was not very tall,
No other tree was like this tree, this tree was special,
This tree was alone,
This tree was bearing the strain of an icy wind,
Just as the branch had hit the ground there was silence all around a calm in the drifting storm
Now this was rare, a tree this young, a tree this strange, a neglected tree, a tree with shallow roots, a tree with hollow bark had survived the storm.
Questioning why me?
This tree was a lonely tree, this tree knew he would grow strong, weak body strong thoughts kept the tree unmoved on broken paths.

Emmanuel Mohanlall  http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-tree-27/

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far! ~John Muir

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.
~Kahlil Gibran

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now. ~Chinese Proverb

Sit still with me in the shade of these green trees, which have no weightier thought than the withering of their leaves when autumn arrives, or the stretching of their many stiff fingers into the cold sky of the passing winter. ~Fernando Pessoa

The oaks and the pines, and their brethren of the wood, have seen so many suns rise and set, so many seasons come and go, and so many generations pass into silence, that we may well wonder what “the story of the trees” would be to us if they had tongues to tell it, or we ears fine enough to understand. ~Author Unknown, quoted in Quotations for Special Occasions by Maud van Buren, 1938

A tree never hits an automobile except in self defense. ~American Proverb

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it. ~Henry David Thoreau, “Chesuncook,” The Maine Woods, 1848

I hear the wind among the trees
Playing the celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s 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.
~Joyce Kilmer,”Trees,” 1914

We say we love flowers, yet we pluck them. We say we love trees, yet we cut them down. And people still wonder why some are afraid when told they are loved. ~Author Unknown

And as always, from the guy with Deep Thoughts

If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. ~Jack Handey