Trees

A writer's blog on Pistols and Petticoats about hanging trees got me to thinking about trees.

The maple trees on our street are dropping their seeds. This means I will be pulling trees out of my flower beds the rest of the summer. If they would be left to grow my house would be in the middle of a forest.

The cottonwood trees in the park in Lyons are real giants. They are probably the same ones our mother played around when she was a little girl. The big tree that grew through the sidewalk on the corner by the bank is gone. In the summer time it seemed like there were always some men sitting on the bench attached to the tree. Probably solving all the world's problems. Well maybe just the town's problems.

Grandma's cherry tree also springs to mind. Picking her cherries every summer was not one of the things I looked forward to. Those cherries seemed to be too sour for me and there didn't seem to be enough sugar to made them sweet even in a pie. In the fall there were black walnuts. Even though there was a lot of work to getting the hulls off, breaking their hard shells, and digging out the meat, they are the best nuts for brownies. Squirrels must have very strong jaws to be able to crack those shells.

Mulberry trees, yum. Eating the fruit right off the tree would turn our hands and lips purple, but oh my they tasted good. There are a few trees on our golf course that I like to nibble off of when I pass by them.

Driving through Missouri and Arkansas one October was one of the most beautiful drives I have ever taken. The trees were every color you could imagine. Another October we drove to California and back. The prettiest trees on that trip were the ones along the Platte River in Nebraska.

On a train trip to Biloxi, Mississippi when I was a teenager what I remember most was riding for long stretches through really tall trees. I don't know what kind they were, but they seemed to go on forever.

There are two trees in back of our house. I think the big maple belongs to the neighbor, but it is on the lot line so I'm not sure. It certainly provides a lot of shade. The other is one that flowers pink every spring. If you go back a few blogs there is a picture of it.

Isn't it amazing when you think about how deep the roots of some of those big trees have to go to be able to keep them from falling over in the wind? Those roots are not deterred by sidewalks. They just push them up and keep right on growing.

I think that I shall never see
a poem as lovely as a tree

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
against the earth's sweet flowing breast

A tree that looks to God all day
and lifts its leafy arms to pray

A tree thay 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-