{"id":12822,"date":"2013-02-22T11:45:50","date_gmt":"2013-02-22T16:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=12822"},"modified":"2013-02-22T12:00:02","modified_gmt":"2013-02-22T17:00:02","slug":"the-possibilities-of-treeness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/the-possibilities-of-treeness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Possibilities of Treeness<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'Tree<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: <\/em>Tree on the Hill\u00a0(2012)<\/em>, by Patrick Winfield<\/a>. 24\u00d723.5 inches, film and Polaroids on panel]<\/em><\/p>\n

From\u00a0whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Deep down, I don’t believe it takes any special talent for a person to lift himself off the ground and hover in the air. We all have it in us — every man, woman, and child — and with enough hard work and concentration, every human being is capable of [the feat]… You must learn to stop being yourself. That’s where it begins, and everything else follows from that. You must let yourself evaporate. Let your muscles go limp, breathe until you feel your soul pouring out of you, and then shut your eyes. That’s how it’s done. The emptiness inside your body grows lighter than the air around you. Little by little, you begin to weigh less than nothing. You shut your eyes; you spread your arms; you let yourself evaporate. And then, little by little, you lift yourself off the ground.<\/p>\n

Like so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Paul Auster [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Tree<\/strong><\/p>\n

All day I waited to be blown;
\nthen someone cut me down.<\/p>\n

I have, instead of thoughts,
\nuses; uses instead of feelings.<\/p>\n

One day I’ll feel the wind again.
\nA moment later I’ll be gone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Dan Chiasson [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

We end up stumbling our way through the forest, never seeing all the unexpected and wonderful possibilities and potentials because we’re looking for the idea of a tree, instead of appreciating the actual trees in front of us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Charles de Lint [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from\u00a0whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Misreading Housman<\/strong><\/p>\n

On this first day of spring, snow
\ncovers the fruit trees, mingling improbably
\nwith the new blossoms like identical twins
\nbrought up in different hemispheres.
\nIt is not what Housman meant
\nwhen he wrote of the cherry<\/a>
\n hung with snow<\/a>, though he also knew
\nhow death can mistake the seasons,
\nand if he made it all sound pretty,
\nthat was our misreading
\nin those high school classrooms
\nwhere, drunk on boredom, we had to recite
\nhis poems. Now the weather is always looming<\/p>\n

in the background, trying to become more
\nthan merely scenery, and though today
\nit is telling us something
\nwe don’t want to hear, it is all
\nso unpredictable, so out of control
\nthat we might as well be children again,
\nhearing the voices of thunder
\nlike baritone uncles shouting
\nin the next room as we try to sleep,
\nor hearing the silence of snow falling
\nsoft as a coverlet, even in springtime
\nwhispering: relax, there is nothing
\nyou can possibly do about any of this.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Linda Pastan [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

On the Ridge, as in the Indian River section of eastern Florida, citrus plantations are called groves; in California, they are generally called orchards. Citrus trees are evergreen, and in the ancient world they were coveted for their beauty long before anyone ever thought to eat their fruit. Of all the descriptions of them that I have ever run across, the one I prefer is contained in these three lines by an eighth-century Chinese poet:<\/p>\n

In the full of spring on the banks of a river—
\nTwo big gardens planted with thousands of orange trees.
\nTheir thick leaves are putting the clouds to shame.<\/p>\n

The poet’s name was Tu Fu, and he had so much confidence in his writing that he prescribed it as a cure for malaria. Beyond those three lines, I am unfamiliar with Tu Fu’s canon. But I believe in him. Or at least I did that morning at the beginning of the Ridge, where the orange trees were shaming the clouds, and the air was sedative with the aroma of blossoms. Valencia trees, unlike all other orange trees, are in bloom and in fruit at the same time. So most of the trees in every direction were white and green and orange all at once.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(John McPhee [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The Length of the Hour<\/strong><\/p>\n

New houses relax on the fields.
\nGarage doors open soundlessly
\nto admit the monster. Tires stretched
\nover forty pounds of air
\npressure float across gravel.<\/p>\n

The boy closes the last storm
\ndoor on the last evening
\npaper and runs to the car
\nwhere his mother waits. She does not
\nanswer him; the door slam freezes
\nher dreams. It is January.<\/p>\n

A dog chained to a barn door
\nkeeps barking. Somebody\u2019s angry,
\nscared to let him go.
\nOn the other side
\nof a forest past these fields,
\nwolves sniff the hard snow
\nof the tundra. I lay beside the only
\ntree for warmth, there
\nwhere the pack might find me.<\/p>\n

The house takes care of us now.
\nLook at the meat
\nbrowning under the light.
\nThe refrigerator switches on;
\nice crashes into the tray.<\/p>\n

Here are locks in case someone
\nwants to do us harm. Remember
\nhow the police had to pound and pound
\nto wake us that night a white Cadillac
\nleapt from the icy road<\/p>\n

into the arms of our maple! It hung there,
\nempty, doors flung wide—
\nit was a great white petal of a car,
\nbreathing under the gas-lights, opening
\nand opening.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Cynthia Huntington [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

George Washington\u2019s Birthday: Wondering<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wonder what I would have said
\nif my dad asked me,
\n“Son, do you know who cut down
\nmy pretty cherry tree?”
\nI think I might have closed my eyes
\nand thought a little bit
\nabout the herds of elephants
\nI’d seen attacking it.
\nI would have heard the rat-a-tat
\nof woodpeckers, at least,
\nor the raging roar of a charging boar
\nor some such other beast!
\nPerhaps a hippopotamus
\nwith nothing else to do
\nhad wandered through our garden
\nand stopped to take a chew.
\nWe all know George said,
\n“Father, I cannot tell a lie.”
\nYet I can’t help but wonder …
\nDid he really<\/em> try?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Bobbi Katz [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: Tree on the Hill\u00a0(2012), by Patrick Winfield. 24\u00d723.5 inches, film and Polaroids on panel] From\u00a0whiskey river: Deep down, I don’t believe it takes any special talent for a person to lift himself off the ground and hover in the air. We all have it in us — every man, woman, and child — and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,405,250,5,251],"tags":[1314,1798,1812,3314,3325,3375,3376,3377,3378,3379],"class_list":{"0":"post-12822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-nature","9":"category-art","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"tag-trees","13":"tag-john-mcphee","14":"tag-linda-pastan","15":"tag-paul-auster","16":"tag-charles-de-lint","17":"tag-patrick-winfield","18":"tag-dan-chiasson","19":"tag-cynthia-huntington","20":"tag-bobbi-katz","21":"tag-oranges","22":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-3kO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12822"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12836,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12822\/revisions\/12836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}