Travels with Paddles
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Name: Axel Schoevers Location: Rijswijk, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands |
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Family Tree
In front of my parent's house, it is the last of the original trees standing in the street. Planted in 1958, when the house was built, it has seen me and my brother grow up; seen many plays of marbles and heard, and felt, the trembling happy ending Chinese celebration crackers on the New Year, hanging off it. It has weathered many, many storms. Listing a bit since I can remember, standing fierce. It has seen many new arrivals and final departures.A tree, how does it cope with loss? The tree will grow new leaves in Spring. Seeing new families, either living in the houses in the street below or nesting up on it's branches. On this shortest day of the year no birds are singing to the new day. Now I look out of the window to see the tree covered in air hoar and a pigeon making itself comfortable on one of it's branches and singing. The other day a magpie was picking for food below; if anything, the tree knew.
2 comments:
I grew up in the house I'm at now for much of my life. For most of those years there was one lone pine tree. No birds, no animals of any kind would stay any longer than it took to rest a moment in that tree. Since then I planted tons of stuff. Black Walnut, Raspberry bushes, other assorted trees and plants.. This winter, for the first time ever a squirrel moved into one of those trees. All those years finally pays off when a wild animal thinks it's a good place to live.
You remind me of the lovely elm trees that formed a canopy over the street where I grew up. Then the Dutch Elm Disease took them all, and I lost a bunch of friends.
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