I Think that I Shall Never See…

If you listen closely, with all your might, the trees will talk to you

Note: Dan Szczesny is an award-winning New Hampshire journalist, author, and speaker. His latest work, The White Mountain, along with all other things Dan can be found at his website here. For the month of November, Dan is publishing “live essays,” such as this one, on his Facebook feed. We are grateful for his permission to reprint some of these essays here at Monadnock Underground over the next few weeks. You can find the original post, from November 3, here. — CJD

In the front yard of your grandparent’s house, there is a lovely tree stump. Do you remember it, baby? Even in its cutting, your grandparents have plans. The larger pieces are used for the garden. The single, tall stump, will become a platform for vines and flowers. The roots of that tree will remain, long after your grandparents, your parents and even you are gone.

And so, that tree, a giver of life even after death, has become something of an enigma to you — you seem far more interested in it after it was cut then when it grew.

On a recent visit, we play in the yard, and you are drawn, as always, to the tree. Years ago, we attended a summer fair and one of the vendors there, the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, was handing out thin strips of a cut tree, a sapling really. Each circular cross cut was, perhaps, the size of a half dollar. We kept going back, and back. These cross cuts where you could see the age lines so clearly, fascinated you. We still have them.

A neighbor has constructed a tiny fairy house in the cracks and crevasses of a nearby tree and you never fail to visit. In our own yard, you bring rock and shell offerings to the stone Buddha that rests on one of our own stumps and in the fall, we go apple picking and you beg me to lift you up into the trees to reach for the reddest fruit.

And it occurs to me that the trees — much more than any other nature elemental — are raising you along with us.

I think of the great German Romantic poet, Friedrich Holderlin, who wrote: “I was raised by the song / Of the murmuring grove / And loving I learned / Among flowers.”

I adore the idea of the trees speaking. On a hike up to a fire tower not long ago, a heavy wind blew through the tops of the trees and the barks ached and groaned in their song of sway.

“What’s that sound, daddy?” you asked.

“That’s the wind blowing the tops of the trees, baby.”

We stood and listened to the trees for a long time.

Now, we wander over to the big stump, cut sharply and perfectly, and you say to me as if discovering this for the first time, “Daddy, do you want to know how old this tree is?”

“Sure,” I say, “show me.”

And so, you count, slowly and deliberately; the air, cool and damp with Autumn, your flesh connecting with the newly cut wood — a little girl absorbing the energy that still exists inside the trunk. The process takes a while for you, your little finger inching its way over the yellowing trunk.

“Twenty-seven, daddy, this tree has 27 rings.”

I suspect the number is higher than that, but you’re proud of your counting.

“You just did some science there, baby,” I say.

“I did?”

“Yup that’s called dendroclimatology.” You give me a look. “Scientists can figure out the weather and what’s in the air and what’s in the ground based on the rings of a tree.”

“What’s in this one?” you ask.

“I dunno, you’d have to be a scientist to figure that out.”

“I think it’s just dirt.”

“I think you may be right.”

Do you know, baby, that your engagement with that tree — the art and science of ring counting — is over 2,000 years old? It was a Greek botanist way back in BC that first mentioned that tree wood has rings. And none other than Leonardo da Vinci himself that was the first to suggest that trees form rings annually.

My tiny Leonardo… my Renaissance toddler.

There are, of course, other ways your path will cross with trees. There will be climbing and, perhaps, tree houses. There will be animals in trees. And at some point, you’ll ask me what a certain tree is and I’ll have to answer that, so tree-learning is most certainly on the horizon.

But for now, you seem content to just touch; to pick up leaves and to chase the squirrels. You know that trees are life givers, you know that’s where fruit comes from and falls from and deep down inside, you darn well know that trees hold secrets as well. Fairies come from them, magic happens because of them and if listen closely, with all your might, the trees will talk to you.

Talk back, baby. And teach me how to hear.