A little bit of anger hit me today. I decided to walk outside for a moment, and I noticed the many tall and wondrous trees all around our house. It struck me, right then, that trees don’t get angry. At least not that we know of.
They must get happy, though. I mean, Bob Ross was always painting “happy little trees.” It all makes me wonder about trees. Maybe they do have emotions. So much else about them is surprising. First of all, trees are 99% dead. It’s true. All the wood in their trunks, the branches, the all of it, is composed of dead cells. Albeit, those cells act in a supporting role, keeping the tree standing and strong in its structure.
But the only living matter in trees are the leaves, buds, root tips, and cambium. Cambium is the thin green layer just under the bark, which transports food and water, up, up, up, and down, down, down.
And they drink a lot. Anyone who plants a new tree knows this. A large, leafy tree can take up as much as 100 gallons of water a day. And at the same time, they keep our air clean. A tree can absorb as much as 48 pounds of carbon dioxide each year. By its 40th birthday, it can sequester 1 ton of carbon dioxide. All those good trees in the United States forests absorb about 10% of the country’s CO2 emissions each year.
When I hear stories about trees, there are a couple of things about their will to live that always puts me in a state of wonder. The oldest living organism in the world is a colony of quaking aspen called Pando, or “The Trembling Giant.” This magnificence lives in Utah and is still going strong after 80,000 years. This organism spans 106 acres. Most would say it looks like a whole lot of individual trees. But beneath the ground, all of the trees are connected by the roots, and all are identical clones of each other. That makes them a single organism—all for one.
The other story comes from Hiroshima. Six ginkgo trees survived the nuclear bomb there in 1945. Those six trees are still alive today. The survivor closest to the blast was less than a mile from Ground Zero.
Trees. They survive wars, even. That is not always the case for humans—we humans who get angry from time to time.
One of the best-known works ever written about trees was by Joyce Kilmer. He wrote the poem called, simply, “Trees.” I know it well because it was one of the many poems my dad used to recite around our house.
Anyway, today is Joyce Kilmer’s birthday. He was born December 6, 1886, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He was the youngest child in a family of four. His mother was Annie Ellen Kilburn, who was described as a minor writer and composer. His father was Dr. Frederick Barnett Kilmer. Not only was he a physician, he also worked as an analytical chemist employed by the Johnson and Johnson Company. Dr. Kilmer invented J&J’s baby powder.
But when their fourth child came along, they named him Alfred Joyce Kilmer. This, after two priests at Christ Church in New Brunswick. He must have really disliked the name Alfred to take on “Joyce” as a boy.
Joyce Kilmer, a Rutger’s University man and then on to Columbia University, ran school newspapers from grammar school to college. All the while, he wrote. Sometimes he worked on his own books and poems. Other times, he was employed by places like Funk and Wagnall’s, working on The Standard Dictionary.
Finally, he joined the New York National Guard in 1917, when WWI was boiling. By 1918, he was in the midst of heavy fighting in France. Kilmer was shot on the battlefield on July 30, 1918, dying at the age of 31. I wonder if there were any trees there. I wonder if he noticed them. I wonder if they notice us.
“I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.”
===========
“Trees exhale for us so that we can inhale them to stay alive. Can we ever forget that? Let us love trees with every breath we take until we perish.”
― Munia Khan
============
“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all, our most pleasing responsibility.”
― Wendell Berry
=============
Trees
By Joyce Kilmer
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.
===========
Those trees might be happy. They just might do a lot of things.
