"I think that I shall never see

A poem as lovely as a tree."

Take out the references to "God" in this lovely little Joyce Kilmer poem, and it's quite a gem. Continuing on:

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's 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.

"Who intimately lives with rain." - i love that! I feel the same way, except about wind. Am i the only one here who's ever wished she were a tree? Or seen the suggestion of a human form residing -strikingly- among the branches of an oak, elm, maple, or eucalyptus? Hopefully not. Also, i thought this was nice:

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Found that photo on a website mentioning a tree-sit in Berkeley; ah, some things never change ;). I have a similar(ish) photo to this, weirdly enough... took Nat and A____ to Golden Gate Park, and we found some of these same wonderfully twisted trees growing low and rambling, and as usual i forced them into a photo-op. The print came out really really light- you can hardly see their two faces at first, but when you finally do they are hiding at the extreme edges of the frame. It's awesome! They are not nude, however, which is probably a good thing (by that i mean that i am in the midst of a constant battle against prudishness, not that their bodies are in need of some desperate toning regimen or some such nonsense). i wish i could show you all this photo, but until i get a scanner, nothin' doin'.

So where were we? Ah yes, trees.
Like the two small ones near the apartment where i lived as a kid, the ones which bore plums so wonderful that i always looked up at them as delicious yellow jewels. There were dark purple ones, too, but never were they as amazing and sweet. i would cram as many into my pockets (usually overalls, or my favorite pair of grey corduroys) as i could, until they began to squish, and then just eat as many as i could before reluctantly climbing down through the dappled light, onto the rickety wooden fence, and then a leap back to the earth below.
Or the fig tree, in the courtyard of that same apartment building. It had giant, fuzzy, acrid-smelling leaves, and a low, climb-able frame. There were always bustling lines of ants everywhere on the trunk, but that never stopped us from climbing up to reach the fruit, which we weren't so much into eating as we were simply plucking from the stem, and watching the milky fluid seep out from the wound, fascinated. The fig tree kept us shaded during the summer months as we splashed around in the kiddie pool underneath it. It stood stoically, like a sentinel, for years. Sometimes i wonder if it is still there?
There were also the few pine trees in the neighborhood, and their treasure? Sap. Golden, sticky, and precious- glob after glob of it. I had quite the sap collection, and i suppose i was always searching for a piece with a mosquito or other small insect held in stasis within, even though that was amber but how was i supposed to know the difference? The best part about sap-collecting was the smell. I would come down from the trees some days smelling like i was an entire pine forest all by myself. The end came when a particularly fresh and gooey piece of sap was entangled in the hair near the top of my head, giving my mother a headache and me a stern admonishment on the downsides of climbing trees.
Then there was The Magic Tree. Birch, actually (Silver Birch)- and there were definitely more than one around the street where we lived, but i always though of them all in the singular fashion: The Magic Tree. We learned in school that the betula pendula was used by Native Americans to build canoes, which i remember telling myself i would most certainly have to do someday. This tree's catkins (a word which i know now, and only wish i had known then!) would mature and blow apart in a gentle breeze, sending little floating seeds trailing down every which way into the air. We would collect them at a somewhat earlier stage, and manually rub them between our fingers until they fell apart. This was one of the main ingredients in our Potion*. When, years later, i later showed nat where i used to live, and these trees in particular, he understood right away how special they were, which is one of the reasons why i love him so damn much.
"Cherry Blossoms". These were all over Berkeley, but were actually just plum trees ;) They would blossom amazing pink sprays of sweetly scented, delicate flowers in the springtime, and make even the grottiest city street seem like a faraway place. We dutifully re-created them in elementary school art projects: drop some black ink on the paper, then blow the ink around into little skinny "branches" using a straw (something i still do in art projects these days..), then affix small bits of torn-and-crumpled pink tissue paper "blossoms" using tiny dots of Elmer's Glue... how i adored these crafty trees!!
There are more: The low, leafy tree in my mom's backyard when i was in high school, that my friends and i would clamber into after school (and sometimes even during school hours) to get stoned incognito. Just thinking about the clouds of smoke that must have wafted out of that thing cracks me up to this day. Or the really really tall one at Thousand Oaks park that we would hoist each other into at night, and climb almost all the way to the top, then- you guessed it: light up a bowl. Once my friend A___y dropped The Lighter (yes, we only had the one; what idiots) and M____l made her climb all the way back down to get it. Ha, ha. :)
Bare trees in winter, bird's nests finally naked for the world to see; soaring eucalyptus with an intoxicating aroma and silvery "acorns"; mango and avocado trees in Hawaii whose fruit i ate directly off the branches; Luna the redwood; the stately tree that marked the halfway-point of my journey out after a hard day's work, seeming to point the way towards home.

Do you have any trees? i would love to hear about them.

*This consisted of: My mom's giant silver metal mixing bowl, water, ripped-up leaves from each bush/tree/plant nearby, flower petals, dirt, tree bark slivers, Magic Tree catkins, and ground-up berries from a specific bush nearby, which were very watery (sort of like jicama) and had bright purple skins, and which we would grind to a paste on the wheels of our HotWheels, which, when flipped upside-down for this purpose, behaved very much like a child's power tool.