Talking of trees

 Sad sight this morning walking across a nearby Recreation Park into town. My very favorite tree, an ancient horse chestnut, was being "dismantled" - chopped down by the look of it. A dog walker I spoke to said that it was suspected that it was diseased. Obviously no one wants large branches snapping and falling upon the unwary! But a rather sad sight. Not exactly a tree hugger myself but often as I have crossed the Recreation Park I have admired that tree, throughout all the seasons - and yes, just lately I have reached and touched its ancient bark and felt "one with the earth" from which it has grown, helping my mental health issues. 

Anyway, maybe a chance to share a much loved poem....

Binsey Poplars

BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

(felled 1879)

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,

  Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,

  All felled, felled, are all felled;

    Of a fresh and following folded rank

                Not spared, not one

                That dandled a sandalled

         Shadow that swam or sank

On meadow & river & wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

        

  O if we but knew what we do

         When we delve or hew —

     Hack and rack the growing green!

          Since country is so tender

     To touch, her being só slender,

     That, like this sleek and seeing ball

     But a prick will make no eye at all,

     Where we, even where we mean

                 To mend her we end her,

            When we hew or delve:

After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.

  Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve

     Strokes of havoc unselve

           The sweet especial scene,

     Rural scene, a rural scene,

     Sweet especial rural scene.

Obviously my favorite tree is not being felled for so called "progress" but I do love that poem and the flow of the words.

All the best to you all - and try to truly SEE the beauty that is around us - look up now and again from the mobile phone.