Flourishing Trees, Flourishing Minds: Nearby trees may improve mental wellbeing.
2nd December 2011
Krishna on the inspiring life of trees
15th December 2011Howard Nemerov, Learning by Doing:
I’m sure anyone whose been involved in practical tree surgery will agree, this poem brilliantly captures the process and impacts of ‘section felling’ a mature tree. In the past I have taken my fare share of trees down by section felling (the photo is probably one of my last big ‘uns); its a task that can require considerable skill and nerve and one that as a young tree surgeon I would take pride in, focusing on the technical side of the job at hand without too much moral questioning about why the tree was being removed. I’d like to think it’s different now and that I’m more mindful of the wider impacts if, as a consultant arboriculturist, I’m recommending a tree to be felled, but judging by the author’s disregard for ‘experts’, I’m not sure he would agree!
They’re taking down a tree at the front door,
The power saw is snarling at some nerves,
Whining at others. Now and then it grunts,
And sawdust falls like snow or a drift of seeds.
Rotten, they tell us, at the fork, and one
Big wind would bring it down. So what they do
They do, as usual, to do us good.
Whatever cannot carry its own weight
Has got to go, and so on; you expect
To hear them talking next about survival
And the values of a free society.
For in the explanations people give
On these occasions there is generally some
Mean-spirited moral point, and everyone
Privately wonders if his neighbors plan
To saw him up before he falls on them.
Maybe a hundred years in sun and shower
Dismantled in a morning and let down
Out of itself a finger at a time
And then an arm, and so down to the trunk,
Until there’s nothing left to hold on to
Or snub the splintery holding rope around,
And where those big green divagations were
So loftily with shadows interleaved
The absent-minded blue rains in on us.
Now that they’ve got it sectioned on the ground
It looks as though somebody made a plain
Error in diagnosis, for the wood
Looks sweet and sound throughout. You couldn’t know,
Of course, until you took it down. That’s what
Experts are for, and these experts stand round
The giant pieces of tree as though expecting
An instruction booklet from the factory
Before they try to put it back together.
Anyhow, there it isn’t, on the ground.
Next come the tractor and the crowbar crew
To extirpate what’s left and fill the grave.
Maybe tomorrow grass seed will be sown.
There’s some mean-spirited moral point in that
As well: you learn to bury your mistakes,
Though for a while at dusk the darkening air
Will be with many shadows interleaved,
And pierced with a bewilderment of birds.
Howard Nemerov
Adam
I'm a Chartered Arboriculturist at AWA Tree Consultants Ltd. As well as detailing our recent tree survey and arboricultural consultant work, this blog includes wide ranging arboricultural musings, including tree facts, opinion and anecdotes on trees in human culture.
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