O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew—
Hack and rack the growing green!
… After-comers cannot guess the beauty seen. — Gerard Manley Hopkins (Binsey Poplars)
I lived once in a place completely surrounded by trees. No matter which window I looked out of, I saw trees. The simple act of stepping outside meant being literally swallowed by all the trees that delineated the space I occupied. As far as my eye could see, there was nothing but trees, trees, and more trees.
In the beginning, I was intimidated by all those maples, oaks, pines, poplars, hemlocks and beeches. Having up to that point lived much of my life in the city, that woodsy world was completely new and foreign. But as time went by, I grew to fit right into my surroundings, a feeling best described as being “cradled by nature.”
Gone were the buildings and streets I’d grown up among, replaced by a dense swaying mass of greenery that had become my home. Whenever I left it to go back to my former world, I felt like an outsider and could not wait to return to my forested niche. For not only had I become one with the trees that nestled me to their hearts, I had also learned to coexist in harmony with all the wild things that shared my space among them.
The sight of deer outside my door or raccoons in my compost pile became commonplace. After awhile, I lost count of all the sightings of birds and other creatures that visited me unhesitatingly and that knew me as friend. The place lost its newness, and it was as though I had always been there.
Now here I am years later, in another place, where I am once again surrounded by woods. And this is what I have, over time, learned about trees, that they favor neither moment nor circumstance and that they are true to their kind no matter where they happen to be growing. As strange as it may sound, trees are a lot like us humans in more ways than I can count, from their own individual attributes to how they behave and function as a group. And what is often said about us can be applied to them as well.
Like us, trees start from a single fertilized seed and grow according to how quickly their first few cells multiply and expand. As they develop and mature, trees grow thick outer shells, and they also sport crowns. They inhale and exhale, get chilled during the winter and sweat in the summer. They take their sustenance from the soil and they survive by virtue of a complex circulatory system that keeps them hydrated and upright. And in the end, trees, like us, often become bent and wizened in their old age and bear the scars of their hopefully long and interesting lives until they succumb to illness, a strong wind, or a sharp blade. And as if that weren’t enough to endear them to us, trees are also capable of making music, a fact of which I was reminded on a recent windy night.
Now it’s no secret to those who pay attention to such things that the trunks of trees often connect with each other during a storm. As their barks rub together, they produce a sound not unlike sandpaper being dragged across a rough board. Other times, they squeak like an old rusty door hinge or groan like an old rocking chair on a porch. But that night, the tall pines behind this place regaled me with new music as the sound of a violin being tuned came to me on the wind. High and clear were those notes as they moved on the turbulent air, letting those who would hear it know that, despite nature’s restlessness, all was still well with her world. And as I lay there listening to this nocturnal concerto, I, who have no musical ability whatsoever, marveled at the thought that, along with all the other ways that trees benefit our lives, I can add “playing the violin” to that long list.
I’ve never grown accustomed to driving by sections of formerly wooded areas and finding that they’ve been sheared of their trees. As the now barren scene in my rear-view mirror fades, I ponder what’s been lost. Providers of visual beauty, producers of shade and natural coolness, purifiers of air and moisture, repositories and distillers of the light, and now, too, makers of music…how diminished are all our lives when even just a single one is taken down.
But nature is resilient. She had the first word and she will have the last. And if it’s a windy night and trees are involved, that final word may very well be a song.
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