My father taught me a song when I was a small child …it made me see trees as my friends. To this day it is the most beautiful personification I’ve experienced:
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.
Joyce Kilmer (1913)
And so, all my life, I have paid close attention to trees. I remember when I first realized the differences in trees: those that grow to amazing heights and have such wide trunks, those that end up short and stubby with branches that curve and sometimes bend close to the ground so they’re easy to sit on and climb; those that have only leaves – and those that offer up the gifts of fruits and flowers. Then there are those that have no leaves or fruits or flowers – but they’re dressed in needle and cones.
I also remember when it dawned on me that trees belong to tribes: every maple has leaves that are shaped the same way, bark that has the same texture, and branches that reach and spread in similar ways. And so it is with tree tribes: Oaks, Birches, Kapoks, Banyans, Magnolias, Dogwoods – each set with is own coloring, its own flair. And yet – in spite of this wonderful same-ness, so easy to recognize – at a closer glance, every individual tree is different, and every individual leaf, flower, fruit, cone or seed, is also wonderfully different.
When I understood these truths about trees, was when I began to recognize the same was also true for animals and human beings. The natural world, the whole Creation became a thing of wonder for me. What artistry; what beauty; what magic; what majesty!
Who would not want to take care of our rainforests, our endangered species, our fellow human beings? Who could be so care-less, so wantonly destructive of our natural gifts?