Jetsom

The memory had been thrown overboard 75 years ago to lighten the load carried by the ship of life. Driving through the neighborhood today to mail a letter it was washed ashore, more clear and vivid than I thought possible.  In the 5th grade, Mrs. Boudreaux (you already know I am from South Louisiana) gave us each the assignment of chronicling a tree near our house until April.  Following pages that named the kind of tree and gave some scientific details about it, we had to make dated notations twice a week about it through the winter. One entry was our relationship to the location of that tree and one page was our artistic endeavor to portray its appearance.  I chose a Black Willow on the Hebert’s property next to a fence, boxed in by our garage and a chicken yard.  It was secluded enough to be a private place to read or play.

In April, the 18 of us made a circle and talked about our tree.  Most of us had been aware of that tree all our lives. The houses and yards were old enough that landscaping had been done years before.  As we shared, we were amazed at the differences we had never noticed.  My tree was mid-sized and had been bare twigs in the winter.  Sonny’s live oak in his back yard was just then pushing off old leaves from its canopy of branches. Pat chose a crepe myrtle with branches squished together and bark peeling back as the tree grew. I made a cover for my offering, got a decent grade, and threw it out in June.

The winds and tides brought that memory to shore on Sunset Bouvelard when I inched past a tree-cutting service removing a large oak covered with ball moss that I guess had finally suffocated it.  The neutral ground across from the house had a pile of branches.  In front of the house was a a large log that had been the trunk and several circles from higher up.  It had the appearance of a war zone with piles of rubble. The loss of this tree made me breathless as I thought of trees around me I had taken for granted. They provide the much needed shade for Houston and the larger necessity of filtering pollution from city air. Half the houses on my block are wood and wood pulp is the basis for my morning news.  They were given to earth to be a provision for man and his needs. As retribution for my years of inattentiveness, I plan to put into action the words, “Hug a tree.”

For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease.  Job 14:7