I think of the trees

Sometimes I think of the trees in the forest
each rooted in its own spot there to live it’s life

in winter awaiting the flow of the sap
to unfold an array of leaves

none of which is in the shade
always reaching higher

then flowers nuts and seeds
and the sprouts carpeting the forest floor

and in the fall leaves
rustling underfoot making new soil

branches overhead
brattling in the breeze

fractal patterns against the sky
I sometimes think of the trees.

Zphx 20190221

CAN YOU IMAGINE? For example, what the trees do not only in lightning storms or the watery dark of a summer night or under the white nets of winter but now, and now, and now-whenever we're not looking. Surely you can't imagine they just stand there looking the way they look when we're looking; surely you can't imagine they don't dance, from the root up, wishing to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly more shade-surely you can't imagine they just stand there loving every minute of it; the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings of the years slowly and without a sound thickening, and nothing different unless the wind, and then only in its own mood, comes to visit, surely you can't imagine patience, and happiness, like that. ~ Mary Oliver 

Trees, the naked trees, stopped

in their tracks, so peaceful

talking together.

~ Hayden Carruth

Counting trees in Conant's Swamp

November 23.

November 23, 2019

Sunday. 

The trees (counting all three inches in diameter) in Conantum Swamp are:

        Bass                                              6
        Black ash                                      8
        Elm                                              10 (See if all are really elms.)
        Red (?) oak                                   2
        White ash                                      2
        Walnut                                           3
        Apple                                             5
        Maple                                            9
        Hornbeam                                     2
        Swamp white (?) oak                    1

Dogwood also there is, and cone-bearing willow, and what kind of winterberry with a light-colored bark?

Another such a sunset to-night as the last, while I was on Conantum.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 23, 1851

Another such a sunset. See November 22, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun, just emerged from a cloud . . .after a raw and louring afternoon near the beginning of winter, is a memorable phenomenon.") See also November 9, 1858 (“ We had a true November sunset after a dark, cloudy afternoon. The sun reached a clear stratum just before setting, beneath the dark cloud, though ready to enter another on the horizon’s edge, and a cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenomenon as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year."); November 10, 1858 ("Dark-blue or slate-colored clouds in the west, and the sun going down in them. All the light of November may be called an afterglow."); November 14, 1853 ("The clear, white, leafless twilight of November, and whatever more glowing sunset or Indian summer we have then is the afterglow of the year.”); November 17, 1858 ( The setting sun, too, is reflected from windows more brightly than at any other season. “November Lights" would be a theme for me. "); November 25, 1850 ("When I got up so high on the side of the Cliff the sun was setting like an Indian-summer sun. "); November 25, 1851 ("That kind of sunset which I witnessed on Saturday and Sunday is perhaps peculiar to the late autumn. The sun is unseen behind a hill. Only this bright white light like a fire falls on the trembling needles of the pine."); November 25, 1858 ("You are surprised, late these afternoons, a half an hour perhaps before sunset, after walking in the shade or on looking round from a height, to see the singularly bright yellow light of the sun reflected from pines,."); November 25, 1850 ("When I got up so high on the side of the Cliff the sun was setting like an Indian-summer sun."); November 29, 1852 ("About 4 o'clock, the sun sank below some clouds, or they rose above it, and it shone out with that bright, calm, memorable light which I have else where described, lighting up the pitch pines and everything."); November 29, 1853 ("Suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape. . . I think that we have some such sunsets as this, and peculiar to the season, every year. I should call it the russet afterglow of the year.")

Trees appear to grow regularly because the sky and diffusion of light are commonly regular.

February 12. 

Saturday. 

You may account for that ash by the Rock having such a balanced and regular outline by the fact that in an open place their branches are equally drawn toward the light on all sides, and not because of a mutual understanding through the trunk. 

• For there is Cheney’s abele, which stands just south of a large elm. It grows wholly southward, and in form is just half a tree.

• So with the tupelos under the Hill shore, east of Fair Haven Pond. They terminate abruptly like a bull’s horn, having no upward leading shoot, and bend off over the water, — are singularly one-sided. 

In short, trees appear to grow regularly because the sky and diffusion of light are commonly regular. 

There is a peculiarly drooping elm at George Prescott’s great gate just north of his house, very different from the common or upright stiff-branched ones near by it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 12, 1859

You may account for that ash by the Rock having such a balanced and regular outline by the fact that in an open place their branches are equally drawn toward the light on all sides, and not because of a mutual understanding through the trunk. Trees appear to grow regularly because the sky and diffusion of light are commonly regular. See September 25, 1857 ("As I came round the island, I took notice of that little ash tree on the opposite shore. It has been cut or broken off about two feet from the ground, and seven small branches have shot up from its circumference, all together forming a perfectly regular oval head about twenty-five feet high and very beautiful. With what harmony they work and carry out the idea of the tree, one twig not straying farther on this side than its fellow on that! That the tree thus has its idea to be lived up to, and, as it were, fills an invisible mould in the air, is the more evident, because if you should cut away one or all but one, the remaining branch or branches would still in time form a head in the main similar to this")

The tupelos under the Hill shore, east of Fair Haven Pond terminate abruptly like a bull’s horn. See June 30, 1856 ("By the roadside, Long Plain, North Fairhaven, observed a tupelo seven feet high with a rounded top, shaped like an umbrella, eight feet diameter . . .") and note to September 7, 1857 ("Measured that large tupelo behind Merriam's, which now is covered with green fruit, and its leaves begin to redden. It is about thirty feet high, with a round head and equally broad near the ground.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 12

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2023

The civility of one's ancestors.

May 8.

A long row of elms just set out by Wheeler from his gate to the old Lee place. The planting of so long a row of trees which are so stately and may endure so long deserves to be recorded. In many localities a much shorter row, or even a few scattered trees, set out sixty or a hundred years since, is the most conspicuous as well as interesting relic of the past in sight. Nothing more proves the civility of one's ancestors.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 8, 1853

The leafy season: departure of the warblers

June 4.

I notice to-day that most maple, birch, willow, alder, and elm leaves are fully expanded, but most oaks and hickories, ash trees, etc., are not quite. You may say that now, the leafy season has fairly commenced.

Most trees now hold out many little twigs with two or three fully expanded leaves on it, between us and the sun, making already a grateful but thin shade, like a coarse sieve, so open that we see the fluttering of each leaf in its shadow.

About a month ago, after the strong and cold winds of March and April and the (in common years) rain and high water, the ducks, etc., left us for the north. 

Now there is a similar departure of the warblers, on the expansion of the leaves and advent of yet warmer weather. The black-poll warblers (Sylvia striata) appear to have left, and some other warblers, if not generally, with this first clear and bright and warm, peculiarly June weather, immediately after the May rain.

Their season with us, i. e. those that go further, is when the buds are bursting, till the leaves are about expanded; and probably they follow these phenomena northward till they get to their breeding-places, flying from tree to tree, i. e. to the next tree which contains their insect prey.

In a week or more the twigs will have so extended themselves, and the number of fully expanded leaves be so increased, that the trees will look heavy and dark with foliage and the shadow be dark and opaque, - a gelid shade. Hazy, and mountains concealed.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 4,1860

The leafy season has fairly commenced.  See May 27, 1853 ("A new season has commenced - summer - leafy June.”); December 30, 1855 ("Winter now first fairly commenced, I feel. ")

. . .like a coarse sieve, so open that we see the fluttering of each leaf in its shadow. See June 2, 1854 (" I would fain be present at the birth of shadow") and June 2 ,1860 ("not yet heavy masses of verdure, but a light openwork, the leaves being few and small yet, as regularly open as a sieve.")

The black-poll warblers (Sylvia striata) appear to have left. . . See JJ Audubon ("Abundantly found in the State of New Jersey close to the sea-shore, the Black-poll Warbler are met with in groups of ten, twelve, or more, in the end of April, but after that period few are to be seen. In Massachusetts they begin to appear nearly a month later, the intervening time being no doubt spent on their passage through New York and Connecticut. I found them at the end of May in the eastern part of Maine, and met with them wherever we landed on our voyage to Labrador, where they arrive from the 1st to the 10th of June, throwing themselves into every valley covered by those thickets, which they prefer for their breeding places.")

The black-poll warblers

appear to leave for the north

after the May rain.

HDT ~ June 4, 1860

June 4. Leave off flannel. Yesterday and to-day uncomfortably warm when walking. 

The foliage of the elms over the street impresses me as dense and heavy already, — comparatively. 

The black-poll warblers (Sylvia striata) appear to have left, and some other warblers, if not generally, with this first clear and bright and warm, peculiarly June weather, immediately after the May rain. About a month ago, after the strong and cold winds of March and April and the (in common years) rain and high water, the ducks, etc., left us for the north. 

Now there is a similar departure of the warblers, on the expansion of the leaves and advent of yet warmer weather. Their season with us, i. e. those that go further, is when the buds are bursting, till the leaves are about expanded; and probably they follow these phenomena north ward till they get to their breeding-places, flying from tree to tree, i. e. to the next tree which contains their insect prey.  

p.m.- To Fair Haven Hill. They began to carry round ice about the 1st. What I called Carex conoidea in '59, was seen June 2d this year in fruit, and may have flowered with C. pallescens. C. Hubbard's first meadow, south side of Swamp Brook willows. Glyceria fluitans, say two or three days, Depot Brook. I see the great blue devil's-needles coasting along the river now, and coupled. Carex retrorsa (much of it going to seed), Hubbard's Bath shore, say ten days. Has the general aspect of pallescens. At Staples Meadow I observe that a great deal of the pitcher-plant is quite dry, dead, and slate-colored, with some green flower-buds pushing up, perhaps. I think it was thus half killed by the drought of April and May. The clear brightness of June was well represented yesterday by the buttercups (Ranunculus bulbosus) along the roadside. Their yellow so glossy and varnished within ; but not without. Surely there is no reason why the new butter should not be yellow now. The time has come now when the laborers, having washed and put on their best suits, walk into the fields on the Sabbath, and lie on the ground at rest. Aphides on alders, which dirty your clothes with their wool as you walk. 

A catbird has her nest in our grove. We cast out strips of white cotton cloth, all of which she picked up and used. I saw a bird flying across the street with so long a strip of cloth, or the like, the other day, and so slowly, that at first I thought it was a little boy's kite with a long tail. 

The catbird sings less now, while its mate is sitting, or maybe taking care of her young, and probably this is the case with robins and birds generally. 

At the west spring of Fair Haven Hill I cast a bit of wood against a pitch pine in bloom (perhaps not yet in prime generally), and I see the yellow pollen-dust blown away from it in a faint cloud, distinctly for three rods at least, and gradually rising all the while (rising five or six feet perhaps). 

I hear that the nest of that marsh hawk which we saw on the 29th (q. v.) has since been found with five eggs in it. So that bird (male), whose mate was killed on the 16th of May, has since got a new mate and five eggs laid. 

One asks me to-day when it is that the leaves are fully expanded, so that the trees and woods look dark and heavy with leaves. I answered that there were leaves on many if not on most trees already fully expanded, but that there were not many on a tree, the shoots having grown only some three inches, but by and by they will have grown a foot or two and there will be ten times as many leaves. 

Each tree (or most trees) now holds out many little twigs, some three inches long, with two or three fully expanded leaves on it, between us and the sun, making already a grateful but thin shade, like a coarse sieve, so open that we see the fluttering of each leaf in its shadow; but in a week or more the twigs will have so extended themselves, and the number of fully expanded leaves be so increased, that the trees will look heavy and dark with foliage and the shadow be dark and opaque, — a gelid shade.

Hazy, and mountains concealed. 

I notice to-day, for example, that most maple, birch, willow, alder, and elm leaves are fully expanded, but most oaks and hickories, ash trees, etc., are not quite. You may say that now, when most trees have fully expanded leaves and the black ash fairly shows green, the leafy season has fairly commenced. (I see that I so called it May 31 and 27, 1853.)