The Multiple Silence of Trees

The woods surrounding my home are filled with popple trees. Popple is a colloquial word that has been in use for more than a century in the upper Midwest to denote several species of whitish-greenish barked trees. It includes some aspens and some poplars and birches. In winter they line up sentry-like, hundreds of them, dancing in the ever-increasing midwestern winds. I love the way they sway in unison; I love the color variations of the bark and how “far the stems rise, rise until ribs of shelter open” to quote Denise Levertov.

I adopted the image of these trees in meditation to remind me and bring me back to my center, to my deepest self “which for convenience I call God,” to quote Ettie Hillesum. It was not until after I began to use this image that I was amazed to learn how trees communicate, through root systems, sending messages to each other, warnings of insect invasions, forest destruction, coming storms. The image of these trees, the mass groupings of them, so close together, came to represent for me a place of peace and harmony, of connection to the universe, a breathing union with life itself. “To hear the multiple silence of trees. The rainy forest depths of their listening.” Levertov, again.

Listening. Perhaps the most important thing humans do on this earth. This credited to Ettie.

Then I learned that there is a forest of aspens that makes up the largest organism on Earth. This forest and its endangered status are discussed by Forbes and PBS among many others. Pando is the scientific name for this organism, ‘the one-tree aspen forest in Utah made up of over 47,000 trunks, and millions of leaves, connected through one root system.’ (https://pandopopulus.com/pando-the-tree/)

It is described as a quaking aspen clone of 47,000 stems, as perhaps the world’s oldest, heaviest thing, estimated to be 80,000 years old.

Again, from pandopopulus:

Above ground, Pando appears to be a grove of individual trees, like any other grove. It was overlooked, for years. But underground everything is connected by a single and vast root system. It is one tree. A one-tree-forest.

Pando is a fitting symbol of our common and threatened life together, and our ability to endure.

Former First Lady of California Maria Shriver puts it this way: “Pando means I belong to you, you belong to me, we belong to each other.”

I am choosing not to focus on the possible threat that exists to Pando, or to all of us on the planet, but to hold the ecstatic possibility of such an organism along with the constant dangers of human forgetfulness, in both hands together, both parts of our evolution from here to there.  

Trumpeter Swan

The Sidewaks iced and rigid

Shoeprints pressed like fossils in rocks

She navigates with care and for no reason

begins to run.

I have to hold back not to slip.

She noticed first the pink-edged feathers at the snowy curb.

The body lay beyond with its red open wound.

Black leather feet

ungainly awkward protrude up.

I was glad not to see the eyes

Blank and waiting.

Another solitary trumpeter swan flew over.

The trumpet sound lonely and sad.

Canada geese mate for life

I don’t know about trumpeters.

I hurried ahead and took the long way home

Not wanting to cross the dead bird again.

At the river a family of trumpeters:

Bright-white parents

Soft-grey young

Floating in the ice floes

Calling to one another

with that singular note

they often choose.

The cardinal sings because it must

The cardinal sings because it must  

The cardinal sings because it must

April, after all,

Despite wild winds and

As snow smothers what green the earth had begun to reveal  

The cardinal sings

It is his job and duty

To secure a place in the ritual

To enliven this time and place when we have lost track  

The cardinal sings

For love and life

For a partner to share and do what

Spring instructs while the world weeps and moans for its dead  

The cardinal sings

From the highest branch the earth allows

Sings us back to our selves

Helps us carry our hearts, day to day, in weary and chapped hands

The Rites of Spring

It’s Spring in Wisconsin, but today we had 20 mph winds and a 25 degree wind chill with snow showers. A day like today fits the mood: unpredictable, biting and indiscriminate. Two days ago the sun shone and the temperature reached the high 60’s. It was sparkly, crystal-clear, warm.

Our street is noisy on most mornings of the school year with the chatter of children waiting for the school bus to take them to the schools half a block away from my front door. Even on the coldest days they are out climbing snow banks, dancing to keep warm. I watch them from my writing desk, they and the stream of yellow buses going by, shadows of kids in all the windows, keep me company.

Now, the street is silent. Schools are closed, the sign outside the high school reads: Warriors, we hope to see you soon! The streets in town, as everywhere, are very quiet but for an occasional walker, bicycle, or passing car.

Yet one creature that seems immune to the pall of dread over everything is the certain breed of young man they grow here in the upper Midwest who, on those summery days like the one earlier this week, try to make as much noise as possible. They have abandoned their snowmobiles and roar by at odd moments, breaking the silence, in their ATV’s or souped-up testosterone-detailed diesel pick-ups. The guttural explosions of these vehicles replace the more familiar groan of the school buses and chatter of the children.

These boys remind me of the male pigeons who can also be seen this time of year strutting their stuff, both obscene and silly at once, for the females. What comes to mind for me when one of these vehicles blasts down the otherwise empty street, one of the many empty streets of town, by empty stores and restaurants and schools, is a weird vision: an abandoned state fairgrounds or amusement park on a sunny summer day, no visitors, no one running the rides or making cotton candy, no smells of hundreds of hand-held food items. Or maybe there would be one ride going, the tilt-a-whirl, let’s say, without any passengers. Then out of nowhere comes a twenty-something in a T-shirt, barreling through Food Avenue in his truck with an air of reckless pride and showmanship. No one to notice him.

It’s not that I begrudge them their fun, although the noise they make grates on me. It’s that their Spring ritual is playing out in what feels like the movie set for a ghastly horror film. Jack Gilbert says that we are meant to go on with life even with all the suffering around us all the time. That it is disrespectful of the sufferer for us not to engage with the world. I tended to agree with him before this, but now, I’m finding the suffering almost too much to bear.

Solace in Nature #2:

Today on my walk I realized that since the snow melted all the spaces that were off limits, and which will be again with overgrowth in summer, are now open to me for exploring. Wide stretches of prairie fields, hills, stands of birch and pine. The photo was taken a block away from my house. I feel lucky to be here.

Solace in Nature#1

When I first moved to Amery five years ago I woke to strange noises on early spring mornings. After two years when out on a walk I discovered their source. Sandhill cranes make a guttural barking sound when flying and at other times. They nest at the school down the block. Yesterday I heard my first of the year. Today when I heard it, I look up to find it soaring above my head. This is what will keep me sane right now.