themagicoftreestriptych2010n
nature022010n
All around us the vine maples, the towering
hemlocks, the firs and spruces were draped
and bearded with moss. Great trunks rose above
us green and furry as far as we could see. Branches
spread over us shaggy with the primitive
spike moss, Selaginella. Under our feet the plush
of the forrest carpet grew so dense we sank at
times above our shoetops. In the misty light
we saw it roll on and on ,wave after wave,
over the moldering logs ,across the uneven
floor of the forrest...The green carpet that
covers the forrest floor is formed of many
species, many strands: it's warp and woof
are made up of a multitude of mosses.
Here and there along the path streams
of sunshine probed amongst the giant
trees. Drawn in glowing silver lines
they slanted down through the humid air.
And above each spot where they reached
the saturated carpet of the moss, mist curled
up like smoke from a fire being started
with a burning glass. And all the while
the long fingers of the spikemoss,
hanging from the branches like
gray-green stalacites forming under
the roof of a cavern, dripped
endlessly. As each drop fell
it entered the plush of the living
carpet without a sound. It was absorbed
without a trace. Moss is nature's great
silencer.
Edwin Way Teale,
from The American Seasons,
p.54, Ansel Adams "Trees".
Until there were trees, the newly
risen land was a place of rocks and
sand, scarred by the wind and rain,
seared by the unrelieved scorch of
the sun. Then there were forrests.
Trees clothed the hills,
cleansed the air, checked erosion,
shaped the continents, made the
land hospitable. And when man's
earliest ancestors achieved reason
and dreams they found the makings
of tomorrow on the forrest floor, saw
the future's shape in the long shadows
of the woodland...
Trees are the oldest living things we
know. Rooted in the earth and reaching
for the stars, they partake of
immortality, In spring, the trees
are life resurgent, bud and leaf and blossom.
In summer, they are a cooling canopy of
chlorophyll, more miraculous than all
the fractured atoms. In autumn, the
woodland is both beauty and bounty,
glory and replenishment beyond measure.
In winter, the trees are the elemental
shape of life and enduring growth.
Without the woodlands the earth
would be rocks and sand and desolation,
as it was in the beginning.
Hal Borland,
from Our Natural World
p.14, Ansel Adams "Trees"
iconictree2010
Trees conduct the eye from
the ground up to the heavens,
link the detailed temporariness
of life with the bulging blue abstraction
overhead...They alone seem to
unite the earth and the sky-
the known, invadable world
with everything that is beyond
our grasp and power.
Diane Ackerman,
from a Natural History
of the Senses
p.27, Ansel Adams "Trees"
Ansel Adams (2004)
"Trees".
New York: Little. Brown
and Company.
These poems and passages
speak for themselves.
Hope you enjoy them.
Have a settle-into-winter-
kind of day.
Helen.
mannequin012010
