THE MIND OF TREES

Early morning here in Teche country is cloudy, one of those somber gray mornings that signals the exodus of fall and the advent of winter (minus the cold temps). If we aren’t careful, we could feel oppressed by the tin color of the sky at 7 a.m. I’m sitting here, looking out at falling oak and pecan leaves and thinking of the winter of my childhood when doomsday talk and arguments at mealtimes were silenced by what I considered to be an inane bit of redirection my father made in the midst of cloudy atmospheres: “Hush now, look at the trees…” We were always puzzled by this cease fire phrase.

The trees in that scenario were tall, cheerful pines right outside the screen porch where we shared meals, and I remember how I looked out at the resinous trees and smelled the sharp, clean scent of pine needles. We’d put down our forks and knives (figuratively speaking), and silence would save the day. Today, I’m in New Iberia, Louisiana where I live near a coulee overhung by water oaks, live oaks, and swamp dogwood and remember my father’s little saying: “Look at the trees.” In retrospect, I figure my father meant for us to observe their wisdom in being silent observers of disagreeable scenes, or, rather, I choose to assign that meaning to his phrase this morning. We’ve had such a long siege of disagreeable political scenes, and psychiatrists have been busy handling victims of stress brought on by the country’s divisiveness for well over a year.

During a session of a self-help course I once took, we were advised to be careful about being a "guy in a diner," a person who often offers opinions just to hear himself talk, and we certainly have had our fill of guys in a diner this past year. However, my father’s words, “look at the trees,” now resound in a room where the television is turned off, and I view the wind ruffling the leaves on my cherished, silent oak and think: It's difficult to be uncivil when you're silent.

Trees peopled my writing when at the age of seven, I wrote my first story that featured a girl who disappeared into a large hole in an oak tree and took up residence. Inside was a room that held furniture similar to the furnishings within the homes of Beatrix Potter’s animals where a table was set for tea. People like Potter and our imminent Louisiana tree hugger, Caroline Dormon (Miss Carrie, now deceased) attributed human and creaturely qualities to trees, but they recognized that their dominant quality was one of being profoundly, wisely silent. The tree in that early story was, for me, a safe place to be. Later, I mutilated a page in my mother's Elbert Hubbard's Scrapbook, scissoring out the phrase: "Silence is a true thing and never betrays" and putting it in a notebook of quotations I liked. 

In A Slow Moving Stream, my most recent book of poetry, I penned a poem about trees inspired by my journey, traveling by car, the length of the Bayou Teche from Port Barre to Morgan City, Louisiana last year. It’s called “The Mind of Trees,” and last week I chose to read it at a poetry reading in Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

“The Mind of Trees”

They were drawn to trees

lining the banks of the Teche,

hanging over the brown water,

wide arms stretched out in welcome.

The live oaks, an enclosure

against a world that had exiled them,

palmetto and Spanish dagger growing close by,

cypress in the swamp becoming their homes.

They liked the sturdiness of lordly oaks

and the water meandering past,

sat under encompassing branches,

eating and drinking.

If the trees could talk, they said,

and made up stories

about what the oaks had heard.

The trees outlasted their language.

No matter who came

the language disappeared into English –

French, Spanish, German, Chitimacha.

English filled the horizon,

the patois of each clan,

buried under oaks, words waiting.

The trees absorbed all of it

and when hurricanes felled them

they were cut into logs,

loggers finding stories in their language

imbedded in the rings,

began to preserve what had been lost.

Word by word, they created

an articulation of arriving,

the sound of memory offering itself

from a distant longing. They heard

what they had been told not to hear—

testimonies for their being there.

And they praised the trees

for finding a way without them.

Photograph by Victoria I. Sullivan appearing in A Slow Moving Stream

TIME-OUT WITH TREES

Although my evening time on the porch gives me a view of a lovely woods that include white oaks, maple, dogwood, and tulip poplar trees, I miss the tall pines that edge my front yard in New Iberia, Louisiana. I grew up in the piney woods of southeast Louisiana and have always enjoyed the sharp scent of pine needles and the cheerful appearance of those straight-backed conifers.

Yesterday evening while I sat looking out at two fat white oaks, I thought about the Louisiana botanist, Caroline Dormon, whose picture of her hugging a large pine tree appears in my book, THEIR ADVENTUROUS WILL: PROFILES OF MEMORABLE LOUISIANA WOMEN.*  Dormon probably would have agreed with Chinese practitioners of medical massage who believe in the healing abilities of trees—they tout that trees absorb the earth's energy and the universal force from the heavens and help humans channel and cultivate calm. The practitioners advocate that pine trees radiate Chi, nourish blood, strengthen nervous systems, foster long lives, and are the "immortal trees."

Caroline Dormon would have added that they also nurture the human spirit. She lived on a 120-acre tract of piney woods called "Briarwood" near Saline, Louisiana, received a presidential citation for her work in conservation of trees and was the first woman in the U.S. to be elected an associate member of the Society of American Foresters. In 1921, she also became the first woman to be hired by the Louisiana Forestry Service.

As a child, Dormon spent her summers exploring longleaf pines on her grandfather's property near Arcadia, Louisiana, and pines became a lifelong interest that led to the establishment of Louisiana's only national forest, Kisatchie. During the early 1900's when the harvest of timber had peaked, Dormon, then a schoolteacher, began to lobby for the preservation of a tract of longleaf pine in the Kisatchie Hills area. Those hills and surrounding area were later recognized as a national forest. She describes her enchantment with the area that developed into the national forest:

"The great pines came right to the water's edge on these lovely clear creeks, with only an occasional magnolia and dainty wild azalea and ferns. There the idea was born—this unspoiled beauty must be preserved for future generations to enjoy..." And for over a decade she urged congressmen, senators, judges, and the U.S. Forest Service to purchase and preserve the pinelands of north Louisiana. On June 10, 1930, the National Forest Preservation Committee purchased 75,589 acres in three districts of Kisatchie, Catahoula, and Vernon, and Dormon called it "Kisatchie," which became its official name. The forest now contains approximately 600,000 acres of "green gold."

Like the Chinese practitioners mentioned above, Dormon regarded trees as anthropomorphic, writing of them to a close friend: "Those pesky lumbermen were here again today trying to convince me that 'grandpappy' (a 300-year old longleaf pine tree) wouldn't outlive me...oh my, the tales he could tell of his rugged survival through the storms of life." Then she sat down and wrote Forest Trees of Louisiana (1943).

Dormon's home place, Briarwood, was recognized by the American Horticultural Society as a sanctuary for the flora of the South and remains a large natural laboratory sustained by the Caroline Dormon Foundation. During the last years of her life, the ailing naturalist lay abed beneath a bright quilt in the bedroom of her log cabin, looking out the back window and communing with her beloved trees. Dormon felt that trees were immortal and she also had an abiding interest in plant life, believing that if herbaceous plants were hybridized, they, too, would never die!

A note for porch sitters and tree lovers: Chinese practitioners believe that a human can interact with trees by sitting and communing with them silently, and the silent, subtle energy leads a person into the wonders of the tree's inner life. But tree climbers are discouraged from doing any careless climbing, and tree lovers advocate open and respectful behavior, rather than pressing the trees to serve selfish purposes (does this include building tree houses?).

And so much for backyard meditation, developing a relationship with trees, and collecting energy from the so-called most spiritually advanced plants on earth.

*Photograph of Caroline Dormon hugging a tree was reprinted in THEIR ADVENTUROUS WILL: PROFILES OF MEMORABLE LOUISIANA WOMEN by permission of photographer Curtis Guillet of Natchitoches, Louisiana

A GRAY AND GREEN DAY…

Gray day on the mountain

Friends here at Sewanee, TN chide me for giving Sewanee the “aka” of “Grayburg,” but today when I woke up, I thought about this neutral color of gray that seems to pervade the atmosphere on The Mountain. This morning, a gentle rain and overhanging clouds make the name Grayburg seem fitting for these environmental changes, but on far more dry days the iron-colored sky and encroaching mists overpower the village, and Grayburg seems to be a likely name for the place. Natives of the community bristle when I use this name, especially when I say, “it’s an ugly day outside today,” and they hasten to describe the “beautiful mystical look” of the environment, using adjectives like “pearl,” “charcoal,” “silver,” and “gunmetal” to define just plain old gray. It’s a color that isn't white or black, but is a sort of pessimistic hue which forms the background for movies about the British moors, medieval castles, murders in the mists, and other murky subjects.

Green forest in our backyard

Of course, my native Louisiana is often no more uplifting in color, as I’ve always described the sky there as a “threatening-to-rain sky,” and many days in the Fall and winter, fog shrouds the cane fields, highways, and swamps. However, the architecture in Cajun country is not Gothic, and here at Sewanee, we’re surrounded by Gothic buildings on the campus and gray stone residences scattered throughout the town. The color is dignified and authoritative, but constant exposure to it sometimes elicits “gray moods.” Even the fence that surrounds our cottage, which began its life as a natural tan color has begun to silver and now blends in with the rest of Grayburg.

I read that if you want to feel creative and joyful about life, stare at a green object or landscape for two seconds and you’ll lighten up. One of my favorite rites for overcoming melancholia is to walk outdoors and look at the woods where green is the most prevalent color in the natural world, a refreshing color that alleviates anxiety and restores energy.

When I lived in the province of Khuzestan in southern Iran for two years, I appreciated the blue-green colors of gates, mosques, and grillwork on houses and learned that shades of green and blue are regarded as sacred in Iran because they signify paradise. I lived on desert terrain, and with the help of a Portuguese friend, painted a wall in our dining room the color of the ocean to boost the spirits of my family who drooped in the tan landscape.

On a particularly gray day recently, I penned the following poem entitled “The Color Green,” which may become the title poem in a new book of poetry I’m writing:

THE COLOR GREEN

the experts say,

is requisite for creativity,

stare at a verdant object

or landscape for two seconds

and words reach their level of spirit;

trees leafing out on the Cumberland hills,

lichen climbing a stone wall,

the color of hospital wards,

an emerald peace,

mint that my father planted

in the yard of my memory,

grass drinking in dew,

and onions finding their Spring life…

all for the poem that announces life

saying the words for strumpet seasons,

for even the sky washing green.

This, touts the experts

is the color of the opera of language,

the dense forests of stories

you can now listen to in a color…

for everything there is to say.

LIVING ON THE MOUNTAIN, WRITING ABOUT THE DESERT

Post card of saguaro in desert

For the past several weeks, I have been putting together a book of poetry and three short stories entitled Postcards from Diddy Wah Diddy. The book features several poems and a short story about my experiences as a child crossing the desert with my family in an old Ford coupe headed for California, or “Diddy Wah Diddy,” the name my father labeled the state because he thought of it as a paradise. The cover of the book will showcase several postcards of the desert that were published on linen paper, and which my mother collected along the way through the lonely stretches of sun and sand in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California.

On that trip I learned to love the desert and when my youngest daughter, Elizabeth, moved to California, I made annual pilgrimages to Palmdale and Lancaster, California for twenty years to recapture the desert experience.

Among my collection of books is an odd-shaped volume entitled Plants of Sun and Sand by Sanford Stevens, published in 1939, a book that I cherish for its descriptions of desert plants and the drawings by Gerry Peirce. I discovered that a paperback edition of this volume remains in print, but I prefer my wood-covered copy with its short descriptions about the desert growth of Arizona. The drawings were created by Peirce in his studio twelve miles out in the foothills near Tucson, and in Stevens’ introduction, he describes Peirce as spending his working days there “in undisturbed contact with the desert life and landscape.”

My favorite drawing is that of the Cottonwood, which belongs to the same family as the aspen and poplar trees. Stevens describes it as the handsomest of all trees growing along riverbeds in the desert where, in the Spring, it puts out leaves wider than they are long. I love to hear the wind rustling in these large leaves and enjoyed hearing the soft rustle while stopped for baths behind upended cots on the side of the highway in our travels to Diddy Wah Diddy and, later, in Mexico where they also abound.

One of the stories in Postcards from Diddy Wah Diddy, which I entitled “Going to Diddy Wah Diddy,” recounts some of my childhood impressions of the desert:

“Joshua trees, the tallest of the yuccas, appeared on the landscape. They were almost human looking, like old men, their arms extended, grumbling to one another about the hot sun. Now and then I’d see a lake with small islands, the hot air making waves on the water. Of course, the lakes were only mirages, shimmering with a strange light on the desert’s dusty face, and I accepted this mystery as another part of the desert’s mysterious changeableness.

Post card of Twenty-Nine Palms, California

“Jacob turned north at Desert Center, taking us near the Granite Mountains and through seas of dull yellow sand. A lilac haze hung over the sand, sometimes turning to pink. The desert’s immensity awed me more than it affected anyone else in the blue coupe, except Jacob. His black eyes darted off the thin-ribboned highway, absorbing the yucca plant, Spanish dagger plants, and the strangely-lit mirages…”

I spend a lot of time lately, shuffling through the postcards and remembering the great adventure to California which actually preceded the breakdown of our family unity. The two postcards featured in this blog are from my mother’s collection of 56 postcards she bought in drugstores (as they were called then) in small western towns along the way to Diddy Wah Diddy. 

Perhaps I'll do a second blog about this odyssey and publish more of the wonderful postcards, many of which are paintings. 

DOGWOOD WINTER?

Folks in middle Tennessee say that if a cold snap occurs when the dogwood blooms, we’ll experience a “dogwood winter,” but nothing has snapped here yet, and the beautiful white inflorescence of numerous dogwoods at Sewanee have been clustering a gracious plenty this last week of March. Typically, the trees bloom in mid-April, frequently as late as May, and a “dogwood winter” sometimes follows close behind the flowering.

Thankfully, the weather during this dogwood blooming is perfect, with sun-filled days when the temps climb only to 70 degrees and slight winds breeze through the Cumberland Plateau. Following the advice of gardeners around Sewanee, we planted a small flower garden in the backyard because locals believe that it is safe to dig in the dirt after dogwoods blossom. However, another note of caution for early planters -- according to farmers and gardeners, a “blackberry winter” occurs when a cold snap coincides with the time blackberries are in bloom, which is typically during early to mid-May. So perhaps we’re not out of the woods regarding weather snaps yet.

Hopefully, the weather and the white blanket of flowers will hold until Easter Sunday because many Christians regard the dogwood flowers as religious symbols of the season. Their white petals symbolize Christ’s white robe, and the red dots on their tips symbolize the blood of the Crucifixion. Also, the dogwood tree is reputed to have provided the wood for the cross on which Christ was crucified. At that time, dogwood trees grew tall; however, because of Christ’s death, the legend states that God stunted the dogwood species to prevent their future use as crosses for crucifixion. As a result, few dogwood trees today can be called “towering” (according to apocrypha that is).

The wood from dogwood trees in this neck of the woods is often used for mountain dulcimers, cane, and for fine inlays, and is also utilized for wine or fruit presses. According to folklore, another former use for dogwood was as a tooth brush. Pioneers moving West would peel off bark, bite the twig, and scrub their teeth, according to Gunn’s Domestic Medicine. However, as a lover of old Western movies, I don’t have much to say about the not-so-good-looking teeth of the heroes portrayed on the big screen. In fact, some of them were toothless (excepting John Wayne, of course)!

The dogwood tree has been adopted as the state flower of Virginia, as well as North Carolina and Sorth Carolina. When I was in my early thirties, my Godmother Dora, who lived in Blacksburg, Virginia, always wanted me to visit her in April when the Virginia woods were dense with dogwood blooms, but I missed the blooming every year. I often think of how she would have loved the Tennessee countryside in the Spring. Sunlight heightens the white blooms of the dogwoods that are at the edge of our small forest, and the trees grow well as understories in the semi-shade. I look at them and think of Oriental poets brushing into life their haiku poems about flowers and feel that early Easter blessings have already come to my province on The Mountain.

Rumi, the famous 13th century Persian poet, penned a few poems about Spring flowers resembling the dogwood blooms. One is entitled “Spring to Christ,” and a snippet is excerpted below:

“…Spring is Christ
raising martyred plants from their shrouds,
their mouths open in gratitude,
wanting to be kissed…”

AN ACRE OF ACORNS

After the mosquitoes came the acorns! I mean, my first glimpses of home in New Iberia, Louisiana were of the maringouins fluttering against the pane of my study, and when I glanced at the floor of the dusty patio, I saw a carpet of acorns – whole, half-eaten, broken shells – and more raining down from the Live Oak beside the house. The acorns comprised a bumper crop, the products of a “mast season” in the acorn realm. Sweeping, chloroxing the patio floor, shaking my fist at the squirrels and the jays causes no cessation of the acorn rain. Both jays and squirrels are aggressive and jeer at me from their perches in the live oak, throwing down the shells of the nuts hourly.

Acorns of White Oaks at Sewanee are elephantine compared to the nuts that fall from my Louisiana backyard oak, but the result is the same – the feel and sound of acorns crunching underfoot and littering daily. In my readings about the acorn, I find that most acorns are garnered by birds (especially jays and woodpeckers) before they fall to the ground, and they also provide tasty fare for mice, wood rats, and pigs (?), although I haven’t seen the latter rooting in the yard yet! Armadilloes, yes; pigs, no.

The tannins in acorns agree with the digestion of some animals, but we aren’t among them, unless the nuts are soaked in water for awhile so that the tannins leach out. California Native Americans once fought over trees that bore acorns low in tannins and sweet in taste.

I haven’t spied an acorn woodpecker yet, but these birds subsist on acorns where several species of Live Oaks grow close to each other and produce abundant crops of the nut. Acorns also attract wasps, and I’ve spied a few of their nests near the patio since returning home to Louisiana. Birds sometimes eat the wasp larvae for dessert following a meal of acorns.

Recipes using acorns abound – acorn flour honey cake, acorn pasta, roasted acorns, acorn soup, to name a few. As for me, I’ll sweep the “mast crop” into the backyard for the jays and squirrels and leave the remainder of the harvest for old hippies to eat!

An excerpt from one of my old poems that is unpublished entitled “South Wind:”

“…that same South wind
moves an irksome squirrel,

her pet, a comrade who scatters nuts
before the torn screen door,

sensing she has reached
the gate of a worthy despair,

and leaves his tokens of communication
within her reach,

offering the best a creature can give
to one who hasn’t the peace

of the squirrel, swinging,
limb-hung, in the hot south wind,

eating the nut of a tree’s kindness…”

ABOUT GINKGO TREES…

Yesterday, my botanist friend, Vickie, led me to a site in front of Convocation Hall here on the Sewanee campus, where the Bentley Bells and chimes ring out from Breslin Tower, to show me a beautiful tree whose attractiveness was overpowered by a rancid butter odor. The Ginkgo biloba or Maidenhair Tree, that occupies this site had dropped a gracious plenty of seeds on the ground, and although I stepped carefully on the lawn around the perimeter of the tree, I brought home some seed on the soles of my sandals and had to do a major clean-up to get rid of the unpleasant sour smell.

At the time of the sighting, the tree hadn’t turned its golden autumn color, and its stature indicated that it had guarded the old hall for years. I imagine that most people walk on the sidewalk beside the Gingko, rather than crunching around on the ground beneath it as I did during my investigation, which caused the unpleasant vapors to rise into the air. The smell lingered for half a block.

The Gingko tree in Europe was first sighted by German botanist Engelbert Kaempfer in a Japanese temple garden during the 17th century. It’s a living fossil dating back 270 million years, and at the end of the Pliocene Era during the Ice Age, it disappeared, except in an area of Central China where Buddhist monks are said to have saved the tree from extinction. Today, some species in China tower to heights over 164 feet.

The Gingko tree possesses strong survival characteristics, withstanding heavy winds and snow damage, two weather conditions prevalent at Sewanee during the winter seasons. The tree has been cultivated in North America for over 200 years.

Gingko trees are designated as dioecious – in other words, the trees are either males or female. The females produce a seed that is yellow brown and fruitlike, not unattractive in appearance, but it’s the culprit that contains butanoic acid which emits an unpleasant smell like vomit.

In an interesting article about the Gingko, an Iowa City office manager complained about a Gingko tree growing in front of her business that caused a slimy mess and which she described as emitting a smell that was “pretty disgusting.” Throughout the U.S., some city councils and businesses have removed female Gingko trees, leaving the “non-stinky” male trees in their environments as they’re excellent shade providers. Incidentally, Frank Lloyd Wright acclaimed the Gingko as his favorite tree.

In defense of the smelly Gingko (the national tree of China), extracts of Ginkgo leaves contain flavonoid glycosides and terpenoids (ginkgolides, bilobalides) that are used to treat dementia. Gingko is believed to be effective in enhancing memory in humans and as an anti-vertigo agent. Also, Gingkolides are used in treating and preventing cardiovascular and central nervous system diseases.

Six Gingko trees, still alive and well, that survived the 1945 atom bomb explosion in Hiroshima, Japan attest to the durability of these wonderful trees. I don’t know how old the Sewanee Gingko tree is, but some botanists predict that Gingkos can live 3,000 years!

In Oriental cultures, the Gingko tree represents changelessness, as well as unity, hope and love.

FALLING LEAVES…

One of my earliest memories is that of the wind moving in leaves that were just turning color and falling outside the window of my home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This was a rather commonplace event, but, for me, it was a kind of moment plucked from Time, and I’ve held the moment as precious throughout the years.

Today, as I wait for a call from California to announce the birth of my second great-grandchild, I watch the yellow leaves fall from one of the ubiquitous yellow poplar trees on the Cumberland Plateau. A crow, stationed on a dead limb nearby, watches and waits with me. For us, the falling leaves symbolize the end of summer at Sewanee and the beginning of a new human life.

The tall yellow poplar in my yard reminds me of my own aging – as if the status of great-grandmother doesn’t provide enough support for the idea of aging! The tall yellow poplar’s trunk is thick and deeply furrowed like wrinkled skin and its bark is aged gray. Timber beetles often enter its sapwood, but the old poplar is unusually free from serious disease.

Here on the Plateau, some yellow poplars attain 42 inches in diameter, and one specimen near St. Luke’s Hall on the campus of the University of the South boasts a special name plate. According to Stephen Puckette and co-authors of Comparative Description of the Native Trees of the Sewanee Area, the yellow poplar is the “greatest in stature of any of the trees on the Plateau, or anywhere in Tennessee.” This fact supports my own respect for these tall trees rising in the morning mists.

Every year, just as we arrive at Sewanee for our Spring and Summer sojourn, the yellow poplar’s flowers bloom – from April-June – and provide nectar for honey bees, but its fruits mature in September when we’re preparing to leave the Plateau. Our yellow poplar trees are joined by white oak, persimmon, hickory, and dogwood trees, and they create a small forest facing our living room window where I can watch leaves fall. I also collect a few specimens to keep indoors on my desk and sometimes write poems about them.

Naturally, the twigs and branches of the yellow poplar provide a feast for our brazen white-tailed deer that browse among the stand at the edge of our yard. Squirrels scurry among the poplar’s branches, and rabbits sometimes nibble at the buds and seedlings. Blue jays, chickadees, and woodpeckers find cover in the trees unless my possessive crow friends chase them away.

No one has showed up with a buzz saw yet, but the yellow poplar is frequently cut down and used in the making of furniture and musical instruments. I’m not going to tell my son-in-law, Brad, about these backyard beauties because he loves varieties of wood and is a consummate furniture maker. He visits with us most summers, and one of his favorite observation posts is on the front porch facing the woods!

The yellow leaves continue to fall as I wait for the emergence of my second great-grandchild. I have lined up six of the colorful leaves on the dining room table, as if to symbolize the father, grandfather, two grandmothers, great-grandmother, and uncle who sit in the waiting room of a Los Angeles hospital, praying for a safe delivery.

I think that my great-granddaughter’s birthday will probably be remembered as “the time of the yellow leaves.”