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A Tunnel of Trees

A Tunnel of Trees

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In the archives of suburban history it may not amount to much, but I’ve been waiting for years for this to happen. For trees on the south side of our street to lean over and touch the trees on the north. For a meeting, a confab, a treaty of trees.

I’ve longed, of course, for the passage of green, the sympathy of branch upon branch, the slightly lost feeling I get when I’m passing through such a shaded spot. In my mind’s eye are the great tree tunnels of my past, most notably Pisgah Pike in Woodford County, Kentucky, where the great, gnarled osage orange trees bend their way across an ancient, stone-lined lane.

We’re not there yet in Folkstone. I doubt our oaks could contort themselves so; they are tall, skinny trees, more vertical than horizontal. What we have this summer is a start, a first glancing touch. A promise of green tunnels to come.

The Accidental Arborists

The Accidental Arborists

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In honor of Arbor Day, a few words on the small forest growing in our backyard. No, not the weeds, although some of them are tall enough to qualify for small-tree status, I’m afraid. No, I’m talking about the nether reaches of our backyard, which were smooth and green and grassy when we bought this house but are now a tangled, briar-filled forest incubator. I was just back there this morning, checking on Copper, who’s in dog-digging heaven, when I noticed how tall some of our volunteers are. We have several fledgling oaks and hollies and a few trees of uncertain lineage. They’re the lusty newcomers, racing to catch up with the old grandfather oaks, which are dying at an alarming pace. I mourn the old trees, especially the one that came crashing down a year ago, the first day Suzanne was home from college, 100 feet and double-trunked, so that one half narrowly missed our neighbor’s house and the other half narrowly missed ours. But I take comfort in the accidental forest that grows to replace these venerable giants. Some day the new trees will be old and tall, too, and I can say, I knew them as babies.

The Elemental Tree

The Elemental Tree

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Yesterday on a walk I spotted the tentative pink blossoms of a cherry tree. Only part of it was budding, as if it were dipping its toe in the water of spring, testing to be sure that the warm air and bright sun are not illusions. I’ve noticed other trees with a pinkish haze about them, an aura of what is to come. And although our forsythia isn’t yellow, it has a fullness that comes before the bud.

Before it’s too late, then, let us celebrate the elemental tree, the tree unadorned with leaf or flower. The heft of a trunk, the way branches frame the sky. This winter has been hard on trees; many were so weighted with snow that they will never rise again. But others have, inexplicably, survived.

Willa Cather wrote, “I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.” I agree.