If not for trees ...

Today is, among other things, World Wildlife Day. This year's theme is "Forests and Livelihoods: Sustaining People and Planet." It's unclear which of the wooded areas near us qualify as forest under any of the many definitions of that term. The patchiness of the stands of trees, interspersed with fields, wetlands and water complicates things. Fortunately, for the Carlos Avery Wildlife management Area near us, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has mapped out the land cover. As far as we're concerned, wooded areas that aren't forests are woodlands since we are more of a water and wetlands person than a forest or mountain type but we readily acknowledge that trees, both singly and in the aggregate, are beautiful, functional, and beneficial. If it weren't for trees, where would we put all the leaves for  photosynthesis, or store lots of carbon? And turkeys would probably take to roosting on our decks instead of in trees.

wild turkey hen perched on deck railing

Photo by J. Harrington

You might find it both enjoyable and edifying to read John Fowles The Tree.

We shall never understand nature (or ourselves) until we dissociate the wild from the notion of usability – however innocent and harmless the use. For it is the general uselessness of so much of nature that lies at the root of our ancient hostility and indifference to it.

It's time for us to reread our copy of Fowles' essay to see if we can find reconciliation between forests as entities "sustaining people and planet," and how to "dissociate the wild from the notion of usability." If we're successful, perhaps it will be an indication we have attained satori.

Native Trees

By W. S. Merwin

Neither my father nor my mother knew

the names of the trees

where I was born

what is that

I asked and my

father and mother did not

hear they did not look where I pointed

surfaces of furniture held

the attention of their fingers

and across the room they could watch

walls they had forgotten

where there were no questions

no voices and no shade

Were there trees

where they were children

where I had not been

I asked

were there trees in those places

where my father and my mother were born

and in that time did

my father and my mother see them

and when they said yes it meant

they did not remember

What were they I asked what were they

but both my father and my mother

said they never knew

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