Earlier this week I passed by three small, slender trees struggling to survive on Golden Gate avenue and, with the oncoming summer dry season in mind, I thought, maybe a few times this summer I’ll put a water jug in my pack and come out here to try and keep these poor guys going.
It’s not easy being a small tree in the Civic Center area. During the workday it’s not too bad, as the neighborhood’s full of office workers, street people, and those who have business in the area, mostly with government offices.
But at night the wackadoos rule. Drugs and their toll are always evident here, with varying degrees of madness and desperation, amid the lashings out of those with nothing left to lose, and it’s not uncommon for the mess next dawn to include small branches torn from trees, their still-green leaves beginning to curl and die.
Yet these three had survived. They were seven or eight feet tall now, with evidence of lost limbs and damage, but there was plenty of new greenery at the tops of two of them and the other, saddest of all, had hopeful green sprouts pushing out its trunk.
I think that was the one that kind of got me. I wanted to give it a drink of water, to slip out once every couple weeks or so and give it a chance to heal, survive and grow. It had enough roots, it had a trunk and a limb left, all it needed was a little help.
And now they’re gone. A massive building project up the block, putting in a new parking ramp, has spilled over and now the entire block is all torn up. The parking lane and even the sidewalk is removed, all evidence of the trees is gone. Well, the end presumably came fast.
Yet it’s odd to me that I can feel compassion for the trees but have become so inured to the human madness, to the angry, unwashed, and unhinged, that I pass them by, simply shaking my head at their requests as I’m unwilling to finance their next heroin or crack cocaine purchase.
We do give to charities. I guess the only explanation that comes to mind is that the trees had no choice – but I’m not sure that’s adequate.
Maybe it’s simply that, when I offer a little sustenance to a tree, a cool drink on a hot, dry day in the concrete amidst the heat and the car exhaust, that short silent communion is enough of a respite, a balm inside a busy day, all by itself.
I don’t know when I have read a post I agree with more. My heart aches for unappreciated trees. Don’t feel lacking that you appreciate a tree that only gives and not a person who only takes. That sounds like wisdom to me.
You took a simple thought, that of watering some trees, and juxtaposed it so beautifully with the squalor and ugliness of the area at night. Really, a beautifully sad and poignant post. Sad when we feel more compassion for trees than for people. Sad that in some cases, the trees deserve it more. And yet…these people who are wasting their lives…they’re still people. Really thought provoking. Good stuff.
So sorry about the trees being taken out.
Thanks, j & anhinga. I’m not sure what it says that, the older I get, the more I seem to empathize with plants and the more estranged I feel from so many of my fellow species …
An oak next door to our house had a massive “haircut” a few years back. All the smaler limbs gone, just a massive trunk and half a dozen huge branches. It’s now fully leafed out–you can no longer see the large branches–and while it isn’t as large a canopy as it once was, it still makes me happy to see it green, full, and alive.
The resilience of plants is something I never cease to marvel at. Possibly its that which makes us want to help them – the fact that they don’t whine about their misfortunes, they just struggle on, determinedly putting out new shoots from the stumps of hacked off limbs and generally reminding us of the tenacity of life as well as its beauty.
Very sorry to hear they’ve been torn up for the new building project. I’d like to hope that your local council (or whoever) had them replanted somewhere else – even just on cost-saving grounds… but I doubt it. 😦
Wonderful post.
Thanks, trucie-woo — what happened to that lovely picture your comments used to sport?
Have you gotten shy?
I must tell you that this post is one of the best posts I have ever read, concerning man’s empathy with nature at its very, very best. Sad, depressed are words that do not even touch the surface of my emotions (and it seems yours and many others) when we see the tragic effects of industrialism upon living things and the earth from which all things emerge.
Your post showed up as a WordPress related post to my blog. I came to your site and read this post. That feeling you had when you saw the trees keeping alive at tremendous odds, that you must water and nurture as best you could, is the most noble arrangement we can have to save this planet. On that feeling and the behavior that follows, so much reconstruction and prevention can be accomplished.
Do read some of my posts if convenient. I think you will see something.
Thanks, Jack, I’ll swing by and check yours out.