You must read it!
Listen to her describe the vigorous, yet silent work of trees:
"There's a real power here. It is amazing that trees can turn gravel and bitter salts into these soft-lipped lobes, as if I were to bite down on a granite slab and start to swell, bud, and flower. Trees seem to do their feats so effortlessly. Every year a given tree creates absolutely from scratch ninety-nine percent of its living parts. Water lifting up tree trunks can climb one hundred and fifty feet an hour; in full summer a tree can, and does, heave a ton of water every day. A big elm in a single season might make as many as six million leaves, wholly intricate, without budging an inch; I couldn't make one. A tree stands there, accumulating deadwood, mute and rigid as an obelisk, but secretly it seethes; it splits, sucks, and stretches; it heaves up tons and hurls them out in a green, fringed fling. No person taps this free power; the dynamo in the tulip tree pumps out ever more tulip tree, and it runs on rain and air."
Photo Location:
Brockway Mountain Drive - Keweenaw Peninsula - Upper Peninsula (U.P.) - Michigan
Amazing! I have often thought of the power of trees but couldn't put it into words as she does.I look and the beautiful Japanese Maple in our yard and marvel at the beauty of it. So red and delicate leaves.My dad and I planted a maple in our front yard when I was just a little girl and it is so tall now. I get scard when I think that they could some day pave our gravel road and cut it down. I hope that never happens.
ReplyDeleteAnn Marie:
ReplyDeleteThanks for responding. Check out the other posts too. I also hope your gravel road never gets paved. Our kids loved growing up in that neighborhood on the dead end, next to the woods.
Rich
Richard I've never ever contemplated how many leaves a tree produces in a year until I read those words from Annie nor how quickly it soaks up the water from the roots. No wonder you've read it 4 times - there must be so much to learn from her writings.
ReplyDeleteRosie:
ReplyDeleteSeriously! I was astonished and amazed on every page of Dillard's book! In 1974 and more. You must buy Pilgrim At Tinker Creek!
Richard
I love Pilgrim and Tinker Creek, too. So full of life! I appreciate the way she looks at things, you know? It helps me focus in, too.
ReplyDeleteOne of my literary heroes is Indiana's Scott Russell Sanders. I'm meeting him this weekend, and couldn't be more excited. :)
Emily:
ReplyDeleteI'm certain you will enjoy your Writing Conference. I admire the way you are putting yourself out there. You are such a professional!
I will seek out Scott Russell Sanders at our library.
Richard