{"id":6479,"date":"2011-07-11T13:29:56","date_gmt":"2011-07-11T19:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/?p=6479"},"modified":"2011-07-11T13:29:56","modified_gmt":"2011-07-11T19:29:56","slug":"six-million-leaves-without-budging-an-inch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/07\/11\/six-million-leaves-without-budging-an-inch\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Million Leaves, Without Budging An Inch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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Wikipedia Commons image<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

My husband and I have been tree shopping lately, for a pine in our front yard\u00a0needs replacing. We\u2019ve been debating the merits of different varieties.\u00a0 Flowering crab? Linden? Red maple? Dogwood? Who knew there were so many\u00a0choices?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m intrigued by the way in which trees have begun to fill my consciousness. Here I\u2019ve\u00a0lived for \u00a0five decades without really thinking about them, and now I can\u2019t walk down a street without noticing them. It\u2019s a bit like being pregnant and discovering how many other pregnant women there are out there.<\/p>\n

And such green treasures those trees are! My neighbor\u2019s pin oak is a monarch among<\/p>\n

trees, straight and tall and regal (but too big for the space we have, alas). I\u00a0eye another neighbor\u2019s maple with covetousness,\u00a0but when I do the math I\u00a0realize I will be moldering in the grave by the time a tree planted by me would\u00a0reach such a towering height.<\/p>\n

Even more than birthing a baby, planting a tree is a leap into the future. A small<\/p>\n

one, of course, but I am taking pleasure in thinking of those who will enjoy our tree\u00a0long after we have moved to another plane of existence.<\/p>\n

Annie Dillard has a wonderful paragraph about trees in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek<\/a>\"\":<\/p>\n

It is amazing that trees can turn gravel and bitter salts into these soft-lipped<\/em><\/p>\n

lobes, as if I were to bite down on a granite slab and start to swell, bud, and<\/em><\/p>\n

flower. Trees seem to do their feats so effortlessly. Every year a given tree<\/em><\/p>\n

creates absolutely from scratch ninety-nine percent of its living parts. Water<\/em><\/p>\n

lifting up tree trunks can climb one hundred and fifty feet an hour; in full<\/em><\/p>\n

summer a tree can, and does, heave a ton of water every day. A big elm in a<\/em><\/p>\n

single season might make as many as six million leaves, wholly intricate,<\/em><\/p>\n

without budging an inch; I couldn\u2019t make one. A tree stands there, accumulating<\/em><\/p>\n

deadwood, mute and rigid as an obelisk, but secretly it seethes; it splits,<\/em><\/p>\n

sucks, and stretches; it heaves up tons and hurls them out in a green, fringed<\/em><\/p>\n

fling. No person taps this free power; the dynamo in the tulip tree pumps out<\/em><\/p>\n

ever more tulip tree, and it runs on rain and air.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wikipedia Commons image My husband and I have been tree shopping lately, for a pine in our front yard\u00a0needs replacing. We\u2019ve been debating the merits of different varieties.\u00a0 Flowering crab? Linden? Red maple? Dogwood? Who knew there were so many\u00a0choices? I\u2019m intrigued by the way in which trees have begun to fill my consciousness. Here […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2582,"featured_media":6487,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,109],"tags":[192,591,742],"class_list":["post-6479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-nature","tag-annie-dillard","tag-pilgrim-at-tinker-creek","tag-trees"],"yoast_head":"\nSix Million Leaves, Without Budging An Inch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Wikipedia Commons imageMy husband and I have been tree shopping lately, for a pine in our front yard\u00a0needs replacing. 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