I look at trees of a town
I can sense the soul of citizen
By the status quo selection
Repetitious? Pinched in, propped up
Perfect pairs of circles demanding
Ocular attention
Trendy shading of shaved carpet
Before splitting on the lawn
Worse are the sparse
The neglected, the unnoticed
Slinking surreptitiously in fencerows
Chewing chainlink tattoos
Rotting victims of the mugging winds
Skewering their hair
Stunted twisted
Off color jokes
Spec'ed by Landscape Architects
From far away
Tortured roots basted in base
Or soaked in inappropriate acid
Loved by something else
If they had only taken the time
to test pH 1-4-9
Cowering survivors of tornado alley
Suffering small mans' disease
K-Mart specials, cheap, quick
meaningless ritual replacing the act of faith
Planting permanence for future generations
Turning a corner
Avenue of gentle giants
Vaulted Cathedral ceilings
Barking booming names
Oak, Elm, Beech, Cypress, Magnolia
Pulling your vision to the skies
Tenderly understood, problems solved
Playground companions, anchoring gardens
A community that loves its trees
Loves its people
A contest entry
- I am a town by Cat.
725 points, ended April 22, 2007, 8 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Tree in the City ~ biographical or descriptive # 86 Winklings and Friends by Lyndon.
5000 points, ended June 12, 2008, 13 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
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Lovely wording and depictions of the 'occular' plantings that adorn all small towns. The older sections of most towns are more preserved with the older, hardier species that have resisted disease - and mankind....lol...
love your wording in this! Much enjoyed.
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About 5 or 6 years ago, my town planted a row..15 or 20..of Bradford Pears along the side of some barren, city-owned property. They were lovely in the Spring! Last month, they cut down every one! Now we gaze at wire fencing and unswept litter. I so agree with your poem. Trees should be thought about with far-seeing intellect. I love your write! Congratulations on the HM.
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The first stanza is talking about bradford pear, which are clones that carry the ... effect of planned obsolescence. They are perfect circles that have internal crotch conflicts that lead to splitting. In a row, loosing one knocks a tooth out of the smile. It may be, that as the cities consider liability issues about a type of tree that has a very predictable pattern of failure that this was a risk management move. Truly tragic. Tinker with nature, then kill it when it doesn't work out. It does give some warning about the implications of cloning...
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'I look at trees of a town
I can sense the soul of citizen
By the status quo selection'
Excellent opening lines to this observational piece of free verse.
I feel you walking around the City with a critical eye for careless Councils.
Finally you turn a corner into the older quarter where peace and harmony are sculpted into the community. Words like companion, anchor, love and community add emphasis to the care and attention within the final stanza.
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Contrast is appropriate
anywhere. Some suburbs have uncaring, vandalizing communities; industrial destruction; development at all costs to protect - not trees - but the almighty $.
On the other hand, treed suburbs are the forest re-incarnated.
Well done, poet.
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WONDERFUL
The little town sounds like all the rest...A tree here and there, a park, Kmart...etc. but the truth is most people don't even take the time to know what a tree really is...Strong yet weak and easily hurt even unto death.Your words are wonderful,all the good of a town that does love it's trees...Thank you for sharing.
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I have often wondered how lost transplanted species of trees do in their strange land.
I have stood with my cheek to an Arbutus tree ( which are, by the way, turning black and dying, one after another..and quickly, on the only land they have ever known on the edge of the Pacific in B.C.) and begged her to give us an answer to impede her demise.
Are they lonely? Are they, likeme, aware that they are merely transplants and temporary until a new owner takes them over?
I am very attached to the souls of trees...as they to me, (I pray as I pledge to keep these few 60 foot pines from being downed by rihard who is afraid they will fall on our house....)
Great poem.....
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wow.. a wonderfully descriptive piece- just feel as though i know this place- i do wish the contest criteria had been considered a bit more- but that does not detract from the wonderful value of this write- thanks so much for entering
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thanks for the tour
Poet (not sure if a note of anonymity guess is needed),
"Status Quo" has some motion of comparison from nature regard to degrees of society behind it, I think. It's more than reminding me of when my daughter had I love you gestures that were as gentle breeze leaves, and not especially with my grape vines shawl, feeling it all day to swing among "Oak, Elm, Beech, Cypress, Magnolia
Pulling your vision to the skies"
as there is attraction parallel to upkeep.
You open with a panorama of working residents or opposite via disregard or guarded positioning of plants with trunks! Yet when just a collection, respectability could still be stereopically done though, interesting like by manual only & not one's aim to dot with targets of knocking...
The second stanza oh so showed how few isn't translated into treasure when bordering property lines; and social qualities might be ignored I surmise and so the earth structures get tattered by metal hedges not waved by with hands enough maybe.
Thirdly, the inulting use can be implied by unsupported presence of :
"Specked by Landscape Architects
From far away
Tortured roots basted in base"
as assumption of our ease or impressing can go so awry or injurious from :
" If they had only taken the time
to test pH 1-4-9"
as this isn't just for branching attitude but need, I gathered!
The fourth section seemed curt almost about terse rushed reaction to a storm stunted situation that gets platform performance posibly instead of barefoot in the dirt examination of a revitralization possibility.
Tha conclusion presents chairs for climbing or oddness that was asserted and accepted with :
"Playground companions, anchoring gardens" as picnics by boys and girls shade makes for a happy break of bread so to speak -- stringing excitement besides which would be for recipes over what beans to grow etcetera. Fascinating village life then on from these kind of things indeed!
Well done, may I do well by spotlighting this. Please say if that should be denied and I'll edit.
~Carolyn
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I thought you might understand the perils of improper pH balance.. Thanks for a wonderful critique. I'm not really insulting landscape architects; just how they often don't do their job! Boilerplate drawings and plant selection that don't take into account what will work- Makes problems I can't fix. If I try and fail, I look bad, too. I like your take on the social implications of neglected boundaries... If we spent more time chatting across our fences. Feel free to spotlight!
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Ahhh, I see; you DID remember how many we've lost to such horrid storms...Another grand penning, my Friend...Sighhh...I long for the feelings evoked in me by the sequoias Don & I saw on the West Coast in 1996...Now THOSE are some trees to be reckoned with...I'd pit one against our tornadoes & I'd bet they'd win, too...So many mighty oaks were felled by a sudden burst of wind...not even tornadic, in a lot of instances...Well done, Scribe...Good luck in Mary's contest...
Wanda
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Question. How would you spell specked? as in specifications? This OK? or specced?
Oh. And I am skeered of sequoyas...
Afraid it would just totally unerve me.
I do what I do on nerves. I am a risk taker; and much of what I do takes me to my edge. I think I may just be totally mind blown in their presence... -
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Hmmm...I'd hazard a wild, almost educated guess & say "spec'd"...I did do construction news reporting for 12 years...not that I ever saw it written down, only heard it...It just makes sense & looks right..."Repititious" should be "Repetitious"... Wanda
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