Still here

Hi everyone,

I haven’t written about the globe locust tree in our front yard for several years although I rarely miss a day without giving it a glance. We planted it and three others when we built our house in 1989. Only this one remains, a wraith of its youth, but somehow clinging to life, raising a few birds, throwing bits of tattered shade, doing what it can with its few remaining resources.

These are old pictures. It looks much worse now. Long ago I stopped predicting that the tree would never make it through another winter, through another storm. Now and then it gives up a limb. Not long ago we had to replace the power station on a concrete slab near its base and it was necessary for workers to saw off a sizeable limb on one side. I begged them not to but it couldn’t be helped. The tree is still here. Over the past few years a healthy looking hackberry tumbled into the lake. A beautiful maple lost its leaves and died of some mysterious ailment. An enormous blooming cherry became sick and died within months. The old globe locust is still here, a hoary elf in winter, a leprechaun in green to greet the spring.

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On an occasion when SANDY and I visited a friend in a nursing home, we nodded and smiled to many of the men and women we met up and down the hall. I came home and wrote this poem.

I shiver when the winter flays me bare,
But ah the joy when leaves renew in spring!
People walking by are prone to stare.
They can’t believe I’ll have another fling.

To compensate, as aging trees will do,
I make up for my dissipating strength
By lightening my limbs with beetle holes.
My friends I offer this advice to you,
Trees with grit will go to any length.
Never underestimate our souls.

(c) 2025 David L. Harrison, all rights reserved