From immense, solid Ponderosa pines to ephemeral, whippy willows, trees are intriguing. My first tree memory is a huge, many branched cottonwood tree that grew in front of the old homesteader’s house where my family lived when I was small. Her bark was a grey rough corrugated coat she wore. Her leaves were enormous serrated wide triangles with a sharp point that murmured bright green all summer long. In September, her leaves metamorphasized into golden lemon yellow. Bossy autumn winds parted the leaves from her, and they swirled through the clear glow of the air to earth. The final magic…
Category: Trees
Trees of My Life I
In the land where I grew up, trees were important. This was in the rangeland of north central Montana, in an old, worn group of buttes called the Bear Paw Mountains. Native grasses and trees covered these buttes, as well as irregular patches of shale rock. Bubbling springs and cheerful creeks were salted throughout the buttes, many so hidden they were seldom seen by humans. There were fir, pine, aspen, willow, hawthorne, dogwood, serviceberry and chokecherry, to mention just a few. The trees provided shelter for livestock during stormy weather as well as hot days. Wildlife and birds made their…
Leaf Courage
I saw it there a couple weeks ago, resting among green leaves and flowers. A single yellow heart, its tether disconnected from its source. The edges of the heart were ruffled and it was a bit battered with flecks of brown on its surface. Even though a bright red flower pulsed next to the heart, and farther away a white flower blazed and deep purple flowers shone, the yellow heart’s thrum stopped my footsteps. Then it seemed the yellow heart lifted the slightest bit and hovered there over the leaves it had rested on. It whispered, “See me. Feel me.”…
August Autumn
It’s early August. Even before I flip a page of the calendar, I know it. Just a week or two ago, I walked down the little lane of pine trees that leads to my horse corral to let the horses out to graze for the evening. The falling sun highlighted the tawny grass of late summer in the pasture past the trees. Its warm dried grass-straw scent drifted through the pine needles. Then, I heard it. The crickets, out in the grasses, began their autumn song. Like an orchestra hidden in the grass, I imagined them rubbing their upper and…