#trees

I looked around the garden, the sun feeling warm on my back. "So why are you here? I would think you'd want to be as far away from a hurricane as possible." She looked at me as if I'd just suggested streaking down the beach. It took her a moment to answer. "Because this is home." She wanted to see if the words registered with me, but I just looked back at her, not understanding at all. After a deep breath, she looked up at a tall oak tree beyond the garden, its leaves still green against the early October sky, the limbs now thick with foliage. "Because the water recedes, and the sun comes out, and the trees grow back. Because" -she spread her hands, indicated the garden and the trees and, I imagined, the entire peninsula of Biloxi- "because we've learned that great tragedy gives us opportunities for great kindness. It's like a needed reminder that the human spirit is alive and well despite all evidence to the contrary." She lowered her hands to her sides. "I figured I wasn't dead, so I must not be done ↗

— Karen White

#the-beach-trees #imagination

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself. ↗

— John Muir

#nature #sounds #trees #life

Tree planting is always a utopian enterprise, it seems to me, a wager on a future the planter doesn't necessarily expect to witness. ↗

— Michael Pollan

#nature #trees #education

All our wisdom is stored in the trees. ↗

— Santosh Kalwar

#life-and-living #trees #wisdom #life

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. In the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. ↗

— Max Ehrmann

#life

The yellow moon dreamily tipping buttons of light down among the leaves. Marimba, marimba - from beyond the black street. Somebody dancing, somebody getting the hell outta here. Shadows of cats weave round the treetrunks, the exposed knotty roots. ("Scenes from the Life of the Peppertrees") ↗

— Denise Levertov

#poem #life

Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas. Defeat may prove to have been the only path to resurrection, despite its ugliness. I take it for granted that to create a tree I condemn a seed to rot. If the first act of resistance comes too late it is doomed to defeat. But it is, nevertheless, the awakening of resistance. Life may grow from it as from a seed. ↗

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

#life #resistance #seeds #trees #life

To the great tree-loving fraternity we belong. We love trees with universal and unfeigned love, and all things that do grow under them or around them - the whole leaf and root tribe. ↗

— Henry Ward Beecher

#love

The trail of lime trees outside our building is still a public loo. …where else are they supposed to go to the toilet in a city where public toilets are about as common as UFO sightings?” (pp.281-82) ↗

— Sarah Turnbull

#city #lime #loo #public #toilet

Two Trees A portion of your soul has been entwined with mine A gentle kind of togetherness, while separately we stand. As two trees deeply rooted in separate plots of ground, While their topmost branches come together, Forming a miracle of lace against the heavens. ↗

— Janet Mills

#marriage #trees #wedding #love