Sappy About Trees

I've been known to hug a tree or two and get sappy over Joyce Kilmer's poem, "Trees."

However the five tall pines closely surrounding my studio came down last week - and what a blessed relief that was!

Lately those gigantic trees got gut-wrenching, nail biting, freaky, shivering, pray-a-lot-scary every time we had "weather." Where do you hide, inside a fragile little house? Not so safe there anymore.

Huge storms out of nowhere seem to be happening a lot lately.

I cannot count the number of times we've been hit by a lightening bolt that blew out our phones and computers. Any one of those magnificent tall pines could drop and wipe us out in an instant.

So we hired John Trautwein to take 'em down and I recorded their demise with my camera.

I discovered that it is tough to take a picture of a gigantic tree that shows how gigantic it really is. The best I could do is take pictures of it in sections and stitch them together in Photoshop. But then again, my snaps of the Grand Canyon were underwhelming too.

John had to climb up, cut off the top and remove the branches before he took it down.

This is a photo of Joyce Kilmer, 1886-1918. 

Sadly he was killed in WWI but he left us some splendid poetry. Here is one of my favorites:

Trees

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.