Hello again. It was a rather tentative hello the first time around wasn't
it? I wasn't quite sure of the etiquette for dropping into this forum.
Interrupting without interrupting was what I was aiming for...
I have been fascinated by trees for as long as I can remember. My
grandmother had a small wooded area planted with conifers at the back of her
house. I used to play there for hours as a child although I remember her
cursing the way the pine needles made the soil useless for planting
anything. I didn't mind. Coombe Park is filled with an array of native and
non-native trees including a wonderful selection of Canadian Redwoods (about
150 years old) that have got bags of character. I visit them as often as I
can. For some strange reason it occurred to me on my last visit that
although I think/write about trees because I find them endlessly
fascinating/beautiful etc. etc. I am also working out a memory of something
that moved me - working out some 'guilt' (for want of a more interesting
word).
I have another memory of earlyish childhood where I accompanied my
stepfather to his workplace (one of very few hardwood timber yards in
England). At the back of the yard was (probably still is) a huge field that
disappeared into the distance. It was scattered with felled trunks, each
one bearing the marks of sucker-like disks where their limbs had been
removed. 'Waiting to be debarked' before their journey to the sawmill and
then onwards to line the interior of a yacht or house (invariably) in Saudi
Arabia or North America. I didn't have any particular
environmental/political awareness at the time but all those horizontals were
definitely wrong.
Tina
>From: Caleb Cluff <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
> poetics <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Hello and a poem
>Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:59:20 +1100
>
>Hello Tina - it is a bit daunting, no? All this intellect, poetry?
>
>I planted oaks all over our property, having raised them from acorns. In
>the slate-hard soil we banged crowbars to dig holes for them. If you hit
>the right angle, the bar would ring. Those that the drought didn't finish
>in the first year or two, the termites took from underneath. Their leaves
>retreated all in along their limbs as they died. No water could save them.
>But out of their beds grew kurrajong, wattle and eucalypt.
>
>It's a strangeness, beauty.
>
>Caleb
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