You're as green as the season that quickens the breeze

[sovay]

Because of the geography of my ENT appointment this afternoon, spatch and I walked around the Arboretum afterward. "I love dead gardens," I said as we threaded among the winter-dry clumps and sticks of serviceberry and crabapples and hellebores and whitebeam and roses. "They look like T. S. Eliot."



A parallelogram of sky through the cork tree.



I was enchanted with the peacock-sheened peeling skin of the paperbark maple.



The cypress knees looked like standing stones and seals at the edge of the ice on Dawson Pond.



A stone was sleeping under the ice like a frog.



Rob took this windblown picture of me talking to one of the cork trees in memory of the thirty-year-fallen exemplar of my childhood, now one of the ghost trees of the Arboretum. Thus we learned after we had gotten home that the climbing of trees on the grounds is prohibited nowadays.

The traffic was sticky between the Arborway and Woburn, but we ate our dinner of roast beef sandwiches with great satisfaction in the car. It feels nuts to be alive. I'm working on it.

Comments

[nineweaving]

Lovely! Those seals do sing to me.

Somewhere I still have those photos I took of you way up in a beech tree.

Nine

[sovay]

Lovely! Those seals do sing to me.

Seals of tree sound like one of your worlds.

Somewhere I still have those photos I took of you way up in a beech tree.

That was a good tree.

[nineweaving]

Seals of tree sound like one of your worlds.

Earthsea elementals.

That was a good tree.

Has it gone? I hope not.

*hugs*

Nine

[sovay]

Has it gone? I hope not.

I wasn't thinking of it posthumously! I just remember it fondly. We didn't make it into the beeches on this visit.

[lauradi7dw]

How are there cypress knees? I know that an arboretum has non-native stuff, but holy cow is this the wrong habitat. Or not, apparently.
No need for you to answer my startled question - the arboretum has already done it.
https://arboretum.harvard.edu/stories/cypress-knees-an-enduring-enigma/

[sovay]

No need for you to answer my startled question - the arboretum has already done it.

Maybe it's one of their FAQs.

[lauradi7dw]

In my Southern Boomer youth, there were people (not my parents) who had cypress knees in the house as a decoration. Like a natural sculpture, I suppose.

[sovay]

In my Southern Boomer youth, there were people (not my parents) who had cypress knees in the house as a decoration. Like a natural sculpture, I suppose.

That makes sense to me. I have seen burls of other woods used as sculptures similarly.

[gwynnega]

The photo of you and the cork tree would make a good album cover.

[sovay]

The photo of you and the cork tree would make a good album cover.

Thank you!

[nineweaving]

What tracks would be on it?

Nine

[aurumcalendula]

Those are such cool photos!

[sovay]

Those are such cool photos!

Thank you!

[asakiyume]

Everything is transforming! Your paperbark maple looks like water, rippling and reflecting the world above (as in my icon here). And then the other transformations you mention, cypress knees into standing stones; stone into a sleeping frog.

(Now if you can transform into a person without a sinus infection: perfection! You have the magic of sunlight on you, so ... maybe?)

Thank you for the link to the ghost trees and their stories.

[sovay]

Everything is transforming! Your paperbark maple looks like water, rippling and reflecting the world above (as in my icon here). And then the other transformations you mention, cypress knees into standing stones; stone into a sleeping frog.

I didn't remember the paperbark maple at all. It does look like the oil-surface of a pool. I saw it from a distance when its bark just looked as red as cinnamon sticks and then I got up close and it was full of sap and rainbows.

Your icon is wonderful. Where did you take its photo?

(Now if you can transform into a person without a sinus infection: perfection! You have the magic of sunlight on you, so ... maybe?)

I'm really trying!

Thank you for the link to the ghost trees and their stories.

You're welcome! I loved the project. I have missed that cork tree every visit to the Arboretum for the last thirty years.

[asakiyume]

The icon photo is very old--I want to say in the aughts at some point? There's a spring in the woods behind my house: water bubbles up through sand, and it's a photo of that.

[umadoshi]

All great photos, but an extra WOW for the maple and the cypress knees! <3

[sovay]

All great photos, but an extra WOW for the maple and the cypress knees!

Thank you!

[thisbluespirit]

Those are fascinating trees/photos! Sorry about all the appointments/infection etc. I hope it clears up soon. *hugs*

[sovay]

Those are fascinating trees/photos! Sorry about all the appointments/infection etc. I hope it clears up soon.

Thank you! I would settle for a modicum of normal ill health right now.

*hugs*

[selkie]

The only reason I knew one of those cypress-knees wasn't a real seal was because it hadn't turned to acknowledge your singing; and you would be, to real seals, so naturally you would be acknowledged.

[sovay]

The only reason I knew one of those cypress-knees wasn't a real seal was because it hadn't turned to acknowledge your singing; and you would be, to real seals, so naturally you would be acknowledged.

*hugs*

[regshoe]

I don't think I've come across cypress knees before! What cool, weird, things, and they do look uncannily seal-like.

[sovay]

I don't think I've come across cypress knees before! What cool, weird, things, and they do look uncannily seal-like.

I'm glad I shared them! They are not actually, remotely native to the latitude at which I live.