Mentally Vacationing In Lower Summer

An Icelandic beach, which I did not visit this summer. Summer is not over, officially, just yet; I know, it’s past Labor Day, but it is still Lower Summer* here and I am not ready. So although it is not gone, I am already mourning its end, especially the things I did not do, and […]

Window: White Pine

It’s been a little while since I shared some bummer bird poetry. This one has the marvelous distinction of having been broadcast into a dark Scottish forest. My other poems are still a little jealous. Window: White Pine I. Chaos in the predawn dark— starlings scream II. Robbing the open pinecone, rewarded again and again—chickadee […]

Abortive Suckers: The Mystery of the Cypress Knees

I had never seen or heard of cypress knees before last year, when I visited Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati. It’s a beautiful place to walk around. The landscape is idyllic. Grass, grass, trees, trees, pond, swans, mausoleum, leaves, tombstone, tre—what the hell are those?

The Ur-Trees

I used to think there was something wrong with ponderosa pines. As a kid, their wild, asymmetrical growth bothered me. I wished they would just be conical, and be Christmas tree shaped, like the evergreen trees inside the stores. I wished they were more like the Colorado blue spruce, the state tree I learned about […]

Golden Boy

I wrote this essay two years ago. We had just gotten back from Japan, and I was still basking in the warm glow of the trip. Now, of course, the trip seems even sweeter. I also like this essay because the first time I posted it, I spelled ginkgo wrong throughout, as kindly pointed out […]

How Snow Falling on Pines Changes the Forest

Snow falls often where I live now. I love it, mostly. I do like to work, so I don’t love when it creates snow days. But I love its crisp delicacy, falling soft and softly falling. I love its silence and its brightness. I love the way it tattles on the deer and turkeys and […]

The Death of a Star As Told to the Trees

Space is this abstract concept to lots of you. I know so many people, including so many writers, who could not care less about the subject. They are bored, at best, by everything that exists beyond the eggshell-thin layer of this planet’s atmosphere. The wild, kaleidoscopic kingdom of life on this world is enough for […]

Redux: Whatever Trees

I’m a little bit low on perspective right now, so I’m checking back in with the trees for some resilience inspiration. This post first appeared in 2018. There’s a quote I’ve seen attributed to Ram Dass about why we should turn people into trees. When we look at people (or ourselves), we judge. We compare. […]