“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Lao Tzu
Leaf Loss / Bare Bones / Blue Sky
This ash tree started out forty years ago in a five-gallon pot as a housewarming gift. As soon as the leaves begin to drop–in just a day or two– the branches will become bare and I’ll have a LOT of raking to do.
“Simplicity is the final achievement. Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.” Coco Chanel
Abscission is the reason why leaves fall. Scientists believe that a reduction in sunlight leads to the reduction of chlorophyll in the leaf due to a reduction in photosynthesis and this may trigger the abscission of leaves. The actual process occurs when the weaker cells near the petiole are pushed off by the stronger cells beneath them.
That’s a lot for my brain to process and right now all I want to do is quietly savor the stark, elegantly naked branches.
When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, “Stay awhile.” The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”
This is NOT about that giving tree, Shel Silverstein’s sad apple tree who was abused and abandoned after she gave all that she had for years in her attempts to please a narcissistic little boy.
Taking a bit of a detour and as an aside to that, Angel Girl read The Giving Tree to me — well, not really READ it, but she had memorized every single word and wanted to “read” to me, just like her big brother reads to me. Too adorable, right?
Angel Boy, sitting on my other side, was quick to report in a loud whisper, “She’s not really reading like ME, Grandma, you know that, don’t you?”
I replied, “I know, T, but she wants you and I to be proud of her, so we’re just going to go along with it and praise her efforts, aren’t we?”
After she finished “reading”, we chatted a bit about what the story was all about and Angel Boy said how much he didn’t like it because it was too sad for him to think about the poor tree and Angel Girl chimed in with the same sort of commentary, “He took it all, Grandma, and all she had left was a trunk for him to sleep on when he was old. That wasn’t very nice.”
I was impressed by their empathy and compassion.
And then, because these children NEVER miss an opportunity to point things out to me, she said, “And the man in the book is WAY OLDER than you are, Grandma.”
Ha Ha Ha. Thanks for that, my angel.
Back to my rant, but before I begin, I need to make sure everyone is completely aware about how much I love trees. I don’t even hate eucalyptus trees, but they’re a menace and never should have been planted as a residential street tree, especially so close to houses. I mean, it’s not like I have a colony of koalas in my backyard that need a regular source of food, don’t you agree?
What I’m going on a tirade about is a gigantic eucalyptus tree lives in the space between my house and my next door neighbor’s driveway. It’s a city-owned tree so we can’t do anything about it. No birds nest here; even THEY don’t like it.
The California Invasive Plant Council (CAL-IPC) classifies certain eucalyptus as a “moderate” invasive.
They’re a real fire hazard and can disrupt ecological relationships among species that co-evolved over millennia, which is why many groups work to remove eucalyptus and restore coast live oaks. If that’s not bad enough, limbs fall during storms, and the euc’s shallow root system contributes to the whole tree falling, both of which have killed people.
Volatile oils in eucalyptus trees fuel more intense fires which is enough of a reason to permanently remove this tree.
They are a hazard in every sense of the word. Back in the 1900s, these trees were imported from Australia and planted with the hope that they could be harvested and sold as railroad ties. Unfortunately, eucalyptus is a brittle wood and cracks easily, therefore was unsuitable.
Eucalyptus limbs, branches, and trees regularly fall with potential catastrophic injuries. Recently, one eucalyptus as large as mine fell near our elementary school and was removed.
Last January in San Diego at Balboa Park, a eucalyptus tree was uprooted and fell on top of a woman, obviously causing injuries.
In 2017, A man in his seventies was killed by a branch that fell from a eucalyptus tree at Holiday Park in Carlsbad.
This tree continually drops leaves and other litter on the street, our yards, the sidewalk, and rain gutters. Roots are invasive. The leaves and other tree litter can damage vehicle paint.
I’m really sick and tired of cleaning up this kind of tree debris every week or so.
A few neighbors and I wrote letters to the city expressing all of that and requested the tree be removed. That request was denied. This isn’t the first time we’ve made an effort to get the city to do something about it, and you would think they would be intelligent enough to remove a potentially dangerous hazard, but all they suggested was that If we wanted to spend more than one hundred dollars, we could appeal the decision, but so far, we have not done that.
I met with our councilmember and to no one’s surprise, received no help at all. I’m working on a little show-and-tell with exhibits for a future city council meeting to prove my point and will update you to share all the details about well my plan was or was NOT received. Heehee.
This tree doesn’t give apples; it gives me angst and frustration.
I heard a whisper Coming from the trees And, in that moment I was gone Gone away To return, to where I’d come from.
A little Poem by Athey Thompson Taken from A Little Pocket Book of Poems by Athey Thompson Photo credit to Enchanted Seashells of magical tree at Big Sur
I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. –Joyce Kilmer
I looked up from weeding the veg garden at green leaves and the bluest sky kissed by the sun. There’s a bird singing somewhere in there but I couldn’t locate it.
A few years ago UC Berkeley hosted an Eco-Poetics Conference. My son was invited to participate and while there he was honored to meet the poet, Robert Hass.
Hass served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He won the 2007 National Book Award and shared the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for the collection Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005. In 2014 he was awarded the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets.
I love the way his mind works, it’s as simple as that.
From Hass: “This poem is called measure – I think it belongs to my learning as a young writer as to where I felt poems were coming from.”
Measure
Recurrences. Coppery light hesitates again in the small-leaved
Japanese plum. Summer and sunset, the peace of the writing desk
and the habitual peace of writing, these things form an order I only
belong to in the idleness of attention. Last light rims the blue mountain
and I almost glimpse what I was born to, not so much in the sunlight
or the plum tree as in the pulse that forms these lines.
FYI: Enjambment…From the French meaning “a striding over,” a poetic term for the continuation of a sentence or phrase from one line of poetry to the next. An enjambed line typically lacks punctuation at its line break, so the reader is carried smoothly and swiftly—without interruption—to the next line of the poem.
April is almost over and I nearly forgot it was National Poetry Month!
I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. Joyce Kilmer
I looked up at this gnarled but lovely twisty eucalyptus tree trunk and ran my fingers down her bark/skin. It was roughly textured but felt solid and safe. Notice all the nooks and crannies to shelter birds and other living creatures.
Although leaves appropriately dropped during autumn’s abcission, I assumed it would lie fallow and stay calm until springtime, but that’s not what’s been happening.
This particular tree seems to be on its (his/her?) own schedule or maybe the mild weather is confusing the internal timeline, because in the last two weeks, it flowered, dropped the flowers, and is showing all new green leaves. In January!
This ash tree started out in 1985 in a five-gallon pot as a housewarming gift. As soon as the leaves begin to drop–in just a day or two– the branches will become bare and I’ll have a LOT of raking to do.
Abscission is the reason why leaves fall. Scientists believe that a reduction in sunlight leads to the reduction of chlorophyll in the leaf due to a reduction in photosynthesis and this may trigger the abscission of leaves. The actual process occurs when the weaker cells near the petiole are pushed off by the stronger cells beneath them.
I’m sure there’s an analogy or parallel to my LIFE but I’ve had a tough week and I’m tired of thinking and not able to direct my brain to untangle the profundities because right now all I want to do is quietly savor the stark, elegantly naked branches.
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 