The Beauty of Trees- Haiku - My Eyes Beheld Trees

My inspiration for the Haiku came one morning. I awoke and drew back the curtains. I loved the view from my building. The first thing that would greet my eyes from outside my window, would be a beautiful display of large, towering trees. They shielded me from the outside world, and gave me privacy. The sight of the trees filled me with an uplifting feeling at the start of every new day.

On this particular morning, I drew back the curtains and the sight that greeted me filled me with great sadness and anger. The trees were gone! and all that remained, were short, ugly stumps where the majestic trees once stood. They had all been destroyed because they blocked the residents view. What view? A road and traffic? - I was devastated, and immediately had to write my thoughts and feelings down.-

- My Eyes Beheld Trees -

My eyes beheld trees
Life cut short dashed to the ground
Distressed beyond grief -

Branches tall and proud
Lifes essence sapped from the core
Beauty destroyed now -

Magnificence gone
Green protection is no more
Lifes force stripped naked -

Up-heaved roots wither
Parchment leaves lying on ground
Haunting memories -

The glory before
The axes came down to kill
The dutiful trees -

My eyes beheld trees
My eyes cry rivers for them
Screaming inside boughs -

Green yellow russet
Scattered to dust and wind
Whisper on the breeze -

© Copyright 2008 Christianna Garrett-Martin. All rights reserved.

Throughout time and memoriam, trees have provoked very strong feeling. Trees have majesty and a commanding presence. They are rooted firmly into the ground, to the very essence of life; The core, the central theme. They are guardians and providers. The protection of trees is a very heartfelt issue all over the World. To see a tree felled is a very powerful experience. To see many felled is devastating. -

The ginkgo is impressive. The tree has fan-shaped leaves that turn bright yellow in autumn, can soar 100 to 200 feet in height, with a trunk diameter of three to four feet, and has a possible life span of 1,000 years.

Proclaimed "a living fossil" by botanist Charles Darwin, the ginkgo has survived some 250 million years. "It actually was a tree that lived during the time of the dinosaurs," said Steve Lederach, landscape architect and Hoboken living memorial codesigner.

But one historical fact about the ginkgo stands out as miraculous: A ginkgo was one of the few things left standing-and alive-following the 1945 nuclear blast in Hiroshima. It would bud without any deformities the following spring. The Japanese regard the tree as the "bearer of hope." Still standing outside a temple, inscribed into its trunk are the words "no more Hiroshima" and prayers for peace.

Hoboken residents crave hope and peace as many still struggle with the memory and aftermath of 9/11. "Every time we look out our windows toward New York, I feel it," said Rick Evans, resident and commission member. "Both towers are missing-there's a loss of them. The loss of the towers don't compare to the loss of the families."

The USDA Forest Service established the Living Memorials Project for communities located within the New York, Washington and southwestern Pennsylvania areas to foster healing by using "the resonating power of trees." According to their website, "after 9/11, the recover, re-build and memorial process, in many ways, follows the analogy of forest after a burn. There was an explosion of life in the form of good will, volunteerism and human spirit."

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The Chipko movement was a group of female peasants in the Uttaranchal region of India who acted to prevent the cutting of trees and reclaim their traditional forest rights that were threatened by the contractor system of the state Forest Department. The movement began in Chamoli district in 1973 and spread throughout the Uttaranchal Himalayas by the end of the decade. In Tehri district, Chipko activists would go on to protest limestone mining in the Dehra Dun hills in the 1980s as well as the Tehri dam, before founding the Beej Bachao Andolan or Save the Seeds movement that continues to the present day. In Kumaon region, Chipko took on a more radical hue, combining with the general movement for a separate Uttaranchal state.

One of Chipko's most salient features was the mass participation of women villagers. As the backbone of Uttaranchal's agrarian economy, women were most directly affected by environmental degradation and deforestation, and thus connected the issues most easily. How much this participation impacted or derived from the ideology of Chipko, has been fiercely debated in academic circles. Despite this, both female and male activists did play pivotal roles in the movement including Gaura Devi, Sudesha Devi, Bachni Devi, Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Sundarlal Bahuguna, Govind Singh Rawat, Dhoom Singh Negi and Shamsher Singh Bisht.

- Chipko Slogans -

"What do the forests bear? soil, water and pure air."

"Embrace the trees and
Save them from being felled;
The property of our hills,
Save them from being looted."

"Ecology is permanent economy."

wikepedia.

The sight of these incredible trees grounds me firmly with Mother Nature. The protection of trees is of utmost importance at this very moment in time, with much debate of deforestation. The beauty of trees is all apparent and this is my small tribute to them.