Tree-age

Ever notice how trees are like army veterans? I know you're waiting breathlessly for that one. It occurred to me one day as I was lounging in the sanctuary of my garden. The pansies had died out, the portulacas were blooming as the temperature neared dessert-like heat, and my 50 plus year-old Cherry tree was bearing splendid cherries. Stop Woody Allen or anyone else from telling you otherwise, bugs are notorious tree killers. Other branches extended majestically into the neighbors yard. But what caught my disturbed eye was a stunted tree, limbs puckered into a rounded wound.

I know you've seen them before, vets, homeless people, beggars. India has them in profusion, and they wave their stumps to alarming effect. That was precisely the image the Cherry tree evoked. Some branch, useless or diseased had to be amputated by a handsaw, or worse, chainsaw. And like a human limb the injured appendage had to heal. Months, years of bark and sap and the alpine nervous system finally closed the wound until all the remained was a puckered stump.

In a Tolkienesque moment I imagined myself chatting with the weathered Oak in Mr. Garcia's yard. Or with the 100 foot+ pine across the street. But then I remembered that I don't speak tree and settled for fancifully imagining that their leaves whispered and murmured a language long forgotten by men. At least I can hug them, eh?