planting trees

yesterday i visited a friend's home. home for her is a beautiful hundred acres of ponds and grasses and woodlot and fields and gnarled trees like inkblots scratching at the sky. stone fences and wooden fences and tangled undergrowth through which bright flashes of blue wind-rippled water can be seen. it reminded me of these delicious words in their depiction of a place left to nature, filled with the tiniest and most lovely details.

"deserted is the place; the orchard trees
neglected; close against the creaking door
dry weeds are -clustered, and the passing gust
snow flakes of drifting thistle-down; no more
bright roses bloom along the garden path
nor lift their burning petals to the sun;
the straggling, scarlet briars have overgrown
the narrow way; the dingy gate no one
now enters; in deep grass the slim stream hides
and speaks no word where solitude abides."

herbert bashford



i helped plant a hundred trees with a friend who travelled out there with me. it's so satisfying to help a new life begin. afterwards i wondered: what will their lives be like? what animals will call them home? what times will the world pass through in their lives that they won't care a scrap about? what will they know each day? how will the change from winter to spring feel after the seventh or eighth time. whose home will they visit and then leave? what will they know in that home?