Trimming Trees
Sorry for landscaping
Howdy Internet,
I wrote this last year about getting our trees trimmed and the complicated feelings that come with overfeeling everything.
Ever reaching to think of life deep and broad, between and beyond it. Even when life is just landscaping.
Hope y’all enjoy!
Monday, April 29th
Good morning, April.
You look lovely in the fog, the wet and murky blanket tucked lazy into Spring. Showers and May flowers and whatnot.
The trees are being trimmed.
Culled back to their suburban forbearance, shaped and sawed and sullied. Tamed for the first time since they became our trees. Just ancestor speak for landscaping, but we are learning to think longer than ourselves, trying to learn at least.
And how exactly does a tree become our tree?
How careless we assume our rightful role in lawn care. Some of these trees, sure, are the baby of our own negligence. Seedlings ignored, nestled too close to the foundation.
Too close, our way of knowing. Foundation, ours as well.
Some of these trees, sure, must be remade compost for our own sake. But the old Live Oak is twice as old as our old house. Older than the neighborhood and the older folks still living here.
This old Oak we must ask for forgiveness, for trimming her shade for the roof's sake. for the neighbors and the Jones' and the adulterated eye I cannot unsee from.
I admit, the trees do look nice trimmed, like a wild dog in a new collar.
A good boy, the fog, and a tamed tree - all our ways of knowing.
But the trees, and the bushes we let become trees, have their own way, and we must learn to listen when they want to stay.
And to say sorry, when we can’t let them.
Thanks for reading y’all!
Hope you have a lovely Spring day.
Alex
Lovely visual. Thank you. Having seen our mountain lose so many trees over the last two years to a couple of very nasty storms it has changed the landscape. Sadly, had many of them been tended to, many of the houses would not have been destroyed and the trees may also have survived. Never an easy decision and hindsight is always perfect. May your trees thrive.
As I read your entry, verses of the Bible came to mind. Genesis 1:26-28. He gave us dominion over the earth and all that is in it. What an incredible responsibility to be stewards of the entire earth. It's overwhelming to think of the command in its entirety. I guess that's why we say that a particular patch of ground is ours, because it's ours for the time being. Enchanting to think that the fruit trees I plant today will feed others when I'm gone from the earth and in the arms of Jesus. Amazing.
Genesis 1:26-28 KJV
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.