A Post as Lovely as a Tree?
September 9, 2015 Leave a comment
Trees
By Joyce Kilmer
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.
~~~
Good. I’ve brought you back in time to grade school and to poem recitals mumbled and fumbled on a small wooden stage festooned with branches, hot klieg lights, coaching teachers and anxious whispering parents ready to breastfeed sweet flowing praise into their little sapling.
Snap! Now, follow me to…
Saturday, in beastly 90 degree Northern Illinois late summer heat, I decided to trek once more through my childhood and teenage and adulthood forest. I call it “my forest” because I like to think of it as “my Illinois” before “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
They took all the trees
And put them in a tree museum
Then they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see ’em
-From Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”
Start the music: As I walked through the “most ancient of conditions” those formative memories of my youth, Joni’s song resounded in some distant glen, somewhere within the silent swish of stately trees and near the stealing bases Blue jays and close to the ever-present droning life support system of the Illinois Toll Way.
A “tree museum”? Now I have to rest from my labors and ponder: after all the recitals and all of the seasons of my life, does my life’s mustard tree end up in the same place as it has for these trees-in a tree museum?
One good thing: it is clear to me that when I die I am recycled. You know, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. But this parking lot to parking lot stuff has got to stop. A bittersweet experience, this “tree museum” business is, on Labor Day weekend.
Encompassing the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois is industry and business of mankind’s doing. I expect that. I just didn’t want all that.
I want Illinois, Northern Illinois back. I want “The Prairie State” back.
So, I came. I saw trees and tall grass. I smelled musty earth and cedar mulch and the decay of rotten wood. I sweated profusely to feel alive once more within the epiphany of nature.
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They took all the trees
And put them in a tree museum
And they charged all the people
A dollar and a half to see ’em
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And they put up a parking lot
…
Hold on to your charm bracelets! Without further ado, here is a portion of my photographic record of The Trek (looking for Ents, basically, to resolve the pavement problem).
Here’s what a photographer might say: “These photos were taken during hazy midday. I prefer morning or late afternoon lighting because the contrast is more interesting and diffuse.”
As you will see, I’m no Ansel Adams or Elliot Porter but I am a visual learner. So…
… sweat glands and all I focused my attention on flora, glen and meadow, Ash, Maples, Oaks and, well, you go there. And, besides, interior forest pictures are well lit during midday. That’ll be my excuse. (Please forward all complaints about out-of-control pavement to your congressman.) Let’s WordPress on. (No parking lots were abused in this filming.)
The Morton Arboretum’s Visitor’s Center
The Morton Arboretum’s Visistor Center w/restaurant facing Meadow lake
A view across Meadow Lake towards the Visitor’s Center
Interior Forest #1
This little fellow wouldn’t give me his name. He had a mouthful of acorn.
Woodland Trail #1
Acorn on the lookout for squirrels.
Berries du jour
Trail #2
Open prairie meadow
Meadow
Meadow flora
Illinois-Wilderness at Your Doorstep
Woodland Interior #1
Woodland Interior #2
Avant garde tree
Woodland Interior #3
Spot the Spider?
Mushrooms a la dead tree
Forest glen #1
Forest glen #2
Morton Arboretum brochure
Fall fashion?
Forest flora
Wetlands
Homage to Eliot Porter
“No Running”
Bugs have “The Right of Way”
“If a tree falls in the forest…”
Japanese tree? How multicultivating!
Stonehenge Green?
Jesus: “I am the True Vine and you are the branches.”
Tanyosho Pine-Japanese Red Fir
“A Walk In Paradise Garden”
In case you missed plastic during this montage here is a Lego Bird scuplture by Sean Kenney.
More plastic…
~~~
Cindy Wity 