I love to look at trees

     I wrote this in 2007.  That was during my Junior year of college. That was a tough semester and a tough 4 semesters leading up to it.  

  Have you ever looked at a tree?  The obvious answer would be “yes.”  Everyone that can see has seen a tree.  Probably.  But have you ever looked at a tree? 

  I looked at a tree the other day.  It was winter’s end – Spring had not yet sprung.  And the tree was there, reaching up up up.  So many thoughts rushed through my mind in an instant about that one tree.  Its branches looked like hands.  Or tentacles (depends on what kind of mood you’re in).  Brown and bare.  Sad.  The poor tree.  Every year it lovingly produces leaves- green leaves- for birds to nest in, people to admire (or sometimes ignore).  Leaves that are sometimes colorful, adorning the tree like a woman who preens herself for a date.  And every year the tree has to give away its beauty, its leaves, its most prized possession…its only possession. 

     I think that if the tree were a human, that kind of sacrifice would be so great, almost unbearable.  To have one’s only, most valuable possession taken each year.  I suppose, in the end, it is rewarded.  Its humblest state of being, naked and bare, is subject to the bitter cold and seemingly never ending torments of winter.  And yet spring comes along, with new buds and fresh colors.  Perhaps nothing in the world can seem so beautiful at that moment.  

     Why can’t I be like that?  Have I not reached the lowest point in my life from which great beauty will burst forth?  Or do I have to continually go through the pain, each year, before a short season of happiness? 

   Sometimes I forget.  But sometimes I remember, and look at a tree.

   
 I still have a fascination with looking at trees and I take pictures of them often, especially in other countries.  (The picture above left was taken in Italy.  The picture to the right was taken in Cusco, Peru.)

A tree in Azusa

A tree at the palace in Korea

Another tree in Korea

Another Korean tree

A toucan on a tree in Panama

All pictures were taken by me