The Beauty of Trees

Little bird in the branches of a tree

A tree adding beauty and life to a barren landscape

Changing with the Seasons

Trees--especially hardwoods--undergo many changes over the course of the year. These changes are adaptations to meet the tree's needs and in response to the harshness of the climate.

During the winter, the temperature drops and the sun rides low on the horizon. Both the ground and water lie frozen. The broadleaf trees stand bare. The trees don't grow or reproduce. They are dormant.

This post and the next three are from this website

http://www.domtar.com/arbre/english/start.htm

In the spring, the temperature increases, melting off the snow. There's plenty of water in the ground and the sun shines brightly. It's a time of bounty that trees put to good use to develop, grow, and produce flowers and leaves.

Summer brings hot, sunny weather, but it's often a time of drought. Trees take this time to store reserves using photosynthesis to stabilize the new tissue that has developed.

When fall comes around, fruit ripens and trees start preparing for the arrival of winter. Days grow shorter and the sun loses some of its strength. Leaves can no longer carry out photosynthesis and start to display their festive fall colors. When winter arrives, trees become dormant and the cycle begins again. Life can be pretty tough on a tree! A tree's annual rings reveal the events that have occurred in our environment.

A beautiful topic, dear Inda!

Trees are our life!

I want to share some of my "tree poems" too ...

a haiku:



Today in the Park

Nature held its breath to hear

the trees chat of love




Love,
Margherita

And ...


The bare plane trees
by Margherita Rueger



There by the river you live and
in the morning sun you stretched
your bare white arms into the Sky,
as a prayer of glory to our Creator,
full of gratitude for being alive.
I let your Beauty sink within,
longing to come closer to you.

Your breath may suffer from
carelessness and pollution,
but you live on a secret Source.
You live on Universe's Love!
And in the evening I came
entering the largeness of your Soul.
I felt your arms enfolding me.

You trickled harmonious tunes
of Love and Peace into my ears.
I touched your trunk,
painted in pure white,
and your velvet skin.
My eyes I raised to admire the
gorgeous emptiness of your Whole.

Three boughs, as a tribute
to the Holy Trinity, sustaining you.
I dared to reach out for
a hanging branch
and you showed me
your promise of Spring!

I caressed one tiny silky bud
and in that very moment
your heart-beat resonated
as a soft thunder deep within.
A joyous trembling due to
recognition pervaded me.
And clearly I felt
that you and I were ONE.



Les platanes by Christine Valin



Love, Margherita

and ....

Our Tree
by Margherita Rueger


Our tree

Happily I close my eyes
while hugging our tree,
a true friend who shares
the secrets with you and me.

The dry leaves murmur
telling me you are near,
tenderly you embrace me
whispering in my ear.

I turn to you in bliss
Tracing your smile
to seal it with a kiss
while offering you mine.

Our tree is delighted
to witness our love
he lowers his branches
enfolding us from above.

To our hearts he is a home,
and we can be on our own
touched only by the moonlight
we share this wondrous night.

Every glimpse of the moon
is met with a sigh, a joyful tune,
dawn comes as a caressing breeze,
our tree stretches in perfect peace.

Love, Margherita


Who has not lived the experience of shared tenderness under a tree?

Dear Margherita,

Thank you for sharing your beautiful poems and images.

Love, Inda

***********

Mother Earth spreads out her mantle
in all directions
and embraces all.
She calls out and brings to herself
all living things,
whatever and whoever they are...

Rabindranath Taqgore

In a Tree House

Light
Will someday split you open
Even if your life is now a cage.

For a divine seed, the crown of destiny,
Is hidden and sown on an ancient, fertile plain
You hold the title to.

Love will surely bust you wide open
Into an unfettered, blooming new galaxy

Even if your mind is now
A spoiled mule.

A life-giving radiance will come,
The Friend's gratuity will come-

O look again within yourself,
For I know you were once the elegant host
To all the marvels in creation.

From a sacret crevice in your body
A bow rises each night
And shoots your soul into God.

Behold the Beautiful Drunk Singing One
From the lunar vantage point of love.

He is conducting the affairs
Of the whole universe

While trowing wild parties
In a tree house-on a limb
In your heart.

Hafiz

The Body a Tree

The body a tree.
God a wind.

When He moves me like this,
Like this,

Angels bump heads with each other
Gathering beneath my cheeks,
Holding their wine
Barrels

Gathering the brilliant tear,
Pearl

Rain.

Hafiz

...Plant the seed of truth and watch it grow
when it spreads its branches
come with us and sit under the blossoms.
Your eyes will open to the secret of Truth.

Rumi

Such beauty, dear Inda!



Photo by Tony Howell: trees mist sheep



The trees fill with tears

silence pervades the meadow

and the hearts know peace



(haiku by Margherita Rueger)

With love,
Margherita

quote:

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth.
-- Herman Hesse

Trees mirror themselves

in the crystal blue water

as me in your eyes.




haiku by Margherita Rueger

Thank you Inda for starting this beautiful thread, and thank you Margherita for all your beautiful words and images.

I wish I had more time to download pictures, but I will add what little I can to keep this thread alive.

Let us take care of our trees.

Love,
Sue

Thank you everyone, this is such a beautiful thread. I am glad to see that we are keeping trees and beautiful poetry alive on Givnology.

Love
Vicky

Choose a tree for friend

hug him and tell him you care

grateful he will grow



haiku by Margherita Rueger


Dear Inda, you see this topic touches my heart!

Love and joy,
Margherita

Why are there trees I never walk under but large and
melodious thoughts descend upon me?
- Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road

God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, "Ah!"
- Joseph Campbell

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come.
- Chinese proverb

The groves were God's first temples.
- William Cullen Bryant, A Forest Hymn

The only word I have for this thread is:
BEAUTIFUL

Sincerely,
Gisele

This is such a beeeeautiful post/thread/discussion... FUN PLACE 2 B!

Would the tree like the following?


sadly I can't see the ".art" files, I'll have to fix dat sumhoooow... "I'm out of my tree!" he he..

Love and happy branches to all, Teo

Thank you all for your beautiful additions to this thread, and a special 'Thank You' for Margherita for adding your lovely poems.
That little treehouse is very appealing Teo.
**********************************************

The earth is our mother.
What befalls the earth befalls all the sons and daughters of the earth.

Native American

From Summer
Christina Rossetti

Hark to the song of greeting! the tall trees
Murmur their welcome in the southern breeze.
Amid the thickest foliage many a bird
Sits singing, their shrill matins scarcely heard
One by one, but all together
Welcoming the sunny weather.
In every bower hums a bee
Fluttering melodiously.
Murmurs joy in every brook,
Rippling with a pleasant look.
What greet they with their guileless bliss?
What welcome with a song like this?

The girl I used to be


My tree will know it all
the tree of my childhood
with the endless branches
and the many whispers

My tree remembers
the girl with the wind in her hair
the girl with the crazy laughter
the girl with the fear of living
the girl I used to be
before

In my tree
everything I want to be
will be

In my tree
I can see the world
but no one can see me

My tree remembers me
the girl I used to be
before

Pia Andersson

A tree poem by Hermann Hesse:

SOMETIMES



Sometimes, when a bird cries out,
Or the wind sweeps through a tree,
Or a dog howls in a far off farm,
I hold still and listen a long time.

My soul turns and goes back to the place
Where, a thousand forgotten years ago,
The bird and the blowing wind
Were like me, and were my brothers.

My soul turns into a tree,
And an animal, and a cloud bank.
Then changed and odd it comes home
And asks me questions. What should I reply?





Hermann Hesse has written many poems about trees. They are beautiful, as everything he has written.

Love,
Margherita

About Hermann Hesse and the trees:

Trees


In Hesse’s texts, there are many passages where he compares an individual human being with a tree. Many cultures have a tradition of anthropomorphic interpretations like this. In his famous poem “Im Nebel” (In the Fog), he writes: “No tree sees the other, each one is alone.” Pictor lets himself be transformed into a tree in “Pictor’s Metamorphoses.” Even in his last poem, “Knarren eines geknickten Astes” (The broken branch), Hesse uses this image for the human being.
In Montagnola, Hesse was inspired by the trees in the garden of Casa Camuzzi, by walks through the chestnut woods, and later, by the plants in his care in the Casa Rossa. Trees were for him living creatures, with a soul of their own, friends. In 1927, Hesse writes in “Lamentation for an Old Tree”: «…. when I look at the garden, it gives me – not only what it gives to the distracted or indifferent eye of any stranger, but infinitely more … the leaves on each tree as well as its bloom and fruit is familiar to me in every stage of its becoming and dying, every one is my friend, of every one I know secrets known to me only. To lose one of these trees is for me, losing a friend.»
In the countryside around the museum, the visitor can still walk in chestnut woods, and see and feel what Hesse described in his texts on yew, beech, camellia, magnolia and others.


Love,
Margherita

http://www.moonfairye.com/library/nebel/fog.htm

Click on the above link and read the poem "In the fog" by Hermann Hesse, there is also a lovely music accompanying it ...

Thank you Margherita for the information. I like the poems and your very beautiful images.
-----------------

If a tree dies, plant another in its place.
- Linnaeus

Love
Vicky

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tall thriving Trees confessed the fruitful Mold:
The reddening Apple ripens here to Gold,
Here the blue Fig with luscious Juice overflows,
With deeper Red the full Pomegranate glows,
The Branch here bends beneath the weighty Pear,
and verdant Olives flourish round the Year.
- Homer

And see the peaceful trees extend
their myriad leaves in leisured dance—
they bear the weight of sky and cloud
upon the fountain of their veins.
- Kathleen Raine, Envoi

A virgin forest is where the hand of man has never set foot.
- Author Unknown

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

Each time these blossoms open I recall the friend who gave me the saplings,
And the times we used to stop to drink beneath his trees;
But those springs of twenty years ago are like a dream,
And the wine cups of those days are tea-bowls now.
- Kisei Reigen

The coconut palm tree grows in hot areas. It likes frost free areas, and grows in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific region. The tree grows near seas in these areas so the roots can find moisture. In the United States it is found only in Hawaii, the Southern tip of Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.Coconuts have supplied some families from the Pacific with shelter, food, drinks, and many of their other needs. The roots supplies's a dye and the trunks are used to stabilize buildings. The hard outside is cut into slices of wood called Porcupine wood. The white meat of the coconut is eaten. They get coconut cream by sifting the white meat till it turns soft and creamy. They use the liquid for a nice refreshing drink. The sap from unopened clusters of flowers is used to make sugar, vinegar, and the alcoholic beverage called

arrack. Mats, baskets, and hats are all made out of the leaves, midrib, and Coir. Coir is the fiber from the husk. To make matting they export Coir to other countries.