Amber Leaves
The sweet gum trees
display a pave set
of gleaming amber leaves,
all clustered,
around an ebony trunk
against a sapphire sky.
In the forest, all things
become treasure,
the glinting egg-shaped
river stone,
the jagged bit of petrified wood,
the ruby yupon berries.
The leaves of the sweet gums
most of all, the citrine
yellow, garnet red, the amber,
topaz and the emerald
of all the leaves just turning.
Most of the beauty of the forest (our six acres, anyway) goes unseen. The leaves turn for a few days and are brown. The baby cardinals are born in the immense woods but are not noticed. The hummingbirds arrive in thousands from Mexico but are lost in the enormity of The Piney Woods and only coaxed out by the sweet nectar of hummingbird food.The flowers on the forest floor are so small that they would fit in half a dime... and no one notices unless they are looking for them especially. Sometimes it is a blessing to have a poet's eye and sometimes it is a curse. When I see a glorious patch of untouched forest ripped up for a parking lot, or the neighbor's 100-year-old deciduous trees cut down for a few dollars, it is heart wrenching. Sometimes, the people closest to the forest, well, "can't see the forest for the trees"!!
People buy up a lot in the middle of the woods and immediately bulldoze all the trees down to make a meadow... all those beautiful, imperfect, gnarly old trees. If the same people planted more tomorrow, the trees would never look the same in their lifetime. That kind of action complete destroys the beauty of a place. Besides, if a buyer didn't want to be in trees, why would he or she even buy a part of the old woods? There are plenty of acres of Texas in Central and West Texas devoid of trees altogether. It is heart breaking. Not to mention all the creatures dislocated and forced to flee from ancient homes. In our tiny woods, we can see the devastation of forty different old pines cut down. All that is left now are the tree stumps. We know it has been 20 years or so since a previous owner went into the forest and cut down every large pine to sell to the highest bidder. The rotting tree stumps stand like markers to the devastation. As long as we own the place, no one will cut down any live trees... but then... we are city folks who treasure the trees because we did not grow up with such abundance.
The sweet gum trees
display a pave set
of gleaming amber leaves,
all clustered,
around an ebony trunk
against a sapphire sky.
In the forest, all things
become treasure,
the glinting egg-shaped
river stone,
the jagged bit of petrified wood,
the ruby yupon berries.
The leaves of the sweet gums
most of all, the citrine
yellow, garnet red, the amber,
topaz and the emerald
of all the leaves just turning.
Most of the beauty of the forest (our six acres, anyway) goes unseen. The leaves turn for a few days and are brown. The baby cardinals are born in the immense woods but are not noticed. The hummingbirds arrive in thousands from Mexico but are lost in the enormity of The Piney Woods and only coaxed out by the sweet nectar of hummingbird food.The flowers on the forest floor are so small that they would fit in half a dime... and no one notices unless they are looking for them especially. Sometimes it is a blessing to have a poet's eye and sometimes it is a curse. When I see a glorious patch of untouched forest ripped up for a parking lot, or the neighbor's 100-year-old deciduous trees cut down for a few dollars, it is heart wrenching. Sometimes, the people closest to the forest, well, "can't see the forest for the trees"!!
People buy up a lot in the middle of the woods and immediately bulldoze all the trees down to make a meadow... all those beautiful, imperfect, gnarly old trees. If the same people planted more tomorrow, the trees would never look the same in their lifetime. That kind of action complete destroys the beauty of a place. Besides, if a buyer didn't want to be in trees, why would he or she even buy a part of the old woods? There are plenty of acres of Texas in Central and West Texas devoid of trees altogether. It is heart breaking. Not to mention all the creatures dislocated and forced to flee from ancient homes. In our tiny woods, we can see the devastation of forty different old pines cut down. All that is left now are the tree stumps. We know it has been 20 years or so since a previous owner went into the forest and cut down every large pine to sell to the highest bidder. The rotting tree stumps stand like markers to the devastation. As long as we own the place, no one will cut down any live trees... but then... we are city folks who treasure the trees because we did not grow up with such abundance.
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