Going crazy for the Festival of the Trees

I confess. I'm a wanton lover of trees. So when Yvonne Osborne asked for participants for the Festival of the Trees I waved my hand madly, but I realized I could never pick a favorite tree. I find something wondrous and fascinating about them all.

I sifted through my pictures of trees--ones that made me stop to capture their images, and I share these with no mention of favorites. I'm tossing in a few haiku and a flash fiction, too.

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The desert palo verde does an amazing transformation. While its name springs from the unreal green shade of its bark, the annual profusion of sunny blossoms turn its normally stark, stick-like appearance into a fairy bower. I mean, really. Can't you see the fairies?

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Walking in a botanic garden, I picked up a sap-green leaf that was wider than my head. Since the tree, whose name I no longer recall, had released the leaf, I took it home.

It lived with me for years, curling so slightly inward from its edges, turning a rich golden brown. It reminds me of the work leaves do to convert sunlight into nourishment and carry it to the tree.

And in that process, they release oxygen to our world. Leaves carry life itself.

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a weathered oak

by the dead stream, standing firm

through the dry season

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Trees also provide homes to countless creatures--birds, rodents and mammals.

But I was stopped in my tracks on a foggy walk through a park by this gigantic spiderweb.

While it can freak you out to suddenly be whacked in the face with a web, there is no denying the awesome design, industriousness and fragile strength of this creation.

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lichen-bright trunks

light the way through damp woods,

the path is swallowed

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Some people love palms and some hate them. I'm not sure why that is. They can be stately like these queen palms or give sustenance like date palms.

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in whipping wind

a palm frond squawk-squawks,

new kind of crow

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And now for a flash fiction in honor of the festival. The story grew out of my fascination with Montezuma cypress trees, which can live thousands of years. One in Oaxaca, Mexico is almost 38 feet in diameter. And there are creation myths surrounding the trees, but this story is purely my imagination.

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Bored with listening to sap flow, Zapo exclaimed, "Is this all there is? Standing still for centuries? Nothing more?"

Zapo was young as Montezuma cypress go, but he'd still lost count of how many fishermen he'd watched cast lines in this lake or how many children tossed crumbs at ducks. His roots had long ago stretched so far around his base they looked like a nest of pythons. His crown was haven to weighty herons and bratty crows. In short, he was cranky with being a monument.

Zapo's fingers levered open a crack in his thick bark, and he gloried in the fresh air. He stared wistfully at a leaf drifting by and the clouds reflected in the lake's surface. He reached out a gnarled foot, his long toes dipping in the cool liquid.

He could be a boy and run free. Why not? But his feet shook the ground like thunder. When he turned his head, wind whirled and birds scattered. He looked down and saw people falling to their knees before him.

"Well, shoots and saplings," he muttered. "So much for blending in."

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Sorry if the formatting is weird on this. Blogger kept arguing with me on the placement of photos and text.

There still is time to put up a tree post before June 28 and send the link to Yvonne. On July 1 all the fest links are posted so you can blog hop.
I may even post a Part II with a different flash fiction about the monkey-puzzle tree since my photo of it in the previous post was such a hit. Got trees on my mind, and that's not a bad thing.

(Postscript added after a trip to the botanic garden where the huge dry leaf was found. It's from a Chinese parasol tree, whose leaves are as big and lovely green as I remember.)