As the Earth and the fascism continue to heat up at a nausea-inducing pace, I am finding myself in a bit of a funk, feeling unsettled by the precariousness of seemingly everything. Of course, everything has always been fleeting, and humans have been going around being the human mess that we are forever. But the unsteadiness has felt more palpable. Loss is breathing hot at the back of the neck, even when nothing acute is happening to my day to day life.
The heat of this summer has kept me from visiting the trees as often as I like, which no doubt adds to feeling like something is off. It’s a bit like a summer hibernation. Less restful than winter and less expected. I can feel the lack of the medicine that the trees administer. It becomes so clear how much it changes me for the better to spend more time with them. But some days I just can’t bear the heat; some days it isn’t even healthy to try. A dizziness sets in as soon as I set foot outside, and I just can’t do it. So grateful some days lately, when it’s not so hot, to feel the relief of the August winds beginning to enliven me again.
Ache As the spring colors fade my mourning tries to argue. I remind it we would love them less if the azaleas stayed. We would miss the varied shades that keep us longing as the fading interrupts the static brilliance. We would miss out on the petals stippling the ground below the magnolias and the cherry trees. Even the absence of ache to witness all this withering would be lost and all this beauty just background noise, inured to be ignored.
For all that the trees boost me, they too are fleeting. I’ve been walking around Green-Wood Cemetery at least a couple times a week (sometimes daily) for the past few years, and I’ve come to know the trees so well that when I walk by a newly cut stump, I often know the specific vibrance of the missing tree and feel a bit of mourning. There are a handful of trees which, should they come down, I will mourn more than a bit! I dread the day.
Who’s Next? I know the cemetery so well I know which trees to grieve. I dread the crush of the distant machine— which one shorn to stump and dust this time? My hands praise the unexpected roughness of your smooth-appearing bark, to ground me in the truth that we’re still standing.
Dogwood Dies of Sorrow I knew you were dying. You were hollowed out, which was part of why I loved you, that your pain ran so deep into your roots. I tried to heal you with a warm blue light I imagined streaming from my palms, but it was too late for you. Sometimes I’m relieved you don’t have to look upon this world as it too decays down to its roots.
But even with the loss, even with the knowledge that so much is being destroyed in our world on purpose, along with the natural passing of all things, I am trying to be with the preciousness of what is here, of what has been. To hold with reverence all the magic the world has ever contained and contains still. In spite of all the forces that try to squash it.
Trigger I hate to admit that the fascism is helping me to fall unapologetically in love with everything they hate in us, to listen more keenly to the rhythms all around me, to feel webbed in to the oneness that we are. To stop living this life on death’s terms, knowing the weight of this impermanence is equal to the preciousness of being awake—exactly now—to what is here.
All the trees pictured in this post were once in Green-Wood and are no longer. Thank you, lovely trees, for all you have done for us.
I hope amidst the precariousness, you are finding ways to steady yourself and being kind to yourself on the days when it’s too hard to find a steadying resource. May the trees hold us all.
Oh...wow, Adrian, this is exquisite in its ache. I'm so sorry for your loss of these arboreal ancestors. I feel it in the soft pulp of my own woody heart. And I relate so deeply to the funk of the precariousness of fascism, the climate, the grief wrapped around it all. Your poetry, prose and the photos are all a balm. And I thrilled at your choice of "stippling." What a great word. Thank you. Sending you spaciousness on the August winds. 🌬️🍃🌳💚
Truly, a stunning collection of prose, poetry, and photos. While I weep for the trees, as I do for the ones here cut for no reason but to make room for machines that gouge the earth for ever bigger mansions lived in for at most two months of the year, I'm sustained by your vision.