One of my all time favorite books is a children’s book, written by an off-the-wall cartoonist (among other things) named Shel Silverstein.

Maureen and i have endeavored to give this book to children or their parents as soon as possible after that child comes into the world. The book is The Giving Tree.

i believe it encompasses some of the most important lessons in life.

In the early 1990’s, i contemplated writing a children’s story about a jacaranda tree and the support it needed with a stake before becoming strong. It wasn’t really a good concept. My attempt to follow Shel Silverstein fell well short. The story lay fallow (lord, i hope that’s right: i seem to never get lay or lie correctly entered) and is in one of my “to work on” folders of which i have many. i am trying to winnow them down.

But as we moved through our landscaping improvements — and will keep continuing, because if you have land, earth around your home that is yours, not some landscape management outfit, this is a continuing, ongoing, mostly enjoyable, and never ending task — we had an interesting side effect. i have presented our two coral trees in previous posts.

One coral tree has grown naturally with no impediments and looks similar to all of the other Mexican coral trees i have encountered in the Southwest corner.

Earlier this spring, the coral blooms were magnificent even in the dark skies of a cloudy day:

On the other side of the backyard was a similar tree. But it was next to a carrotwood tree, which was beautiful but began to take over the backyard and became a problem. It also overshadowed the coral tree.

Finally, we had the carrotwood  tree taken down. And there stood the coral tree. Unlike the other, it had been deprived of a lot of sun. The carrotwood tree had dwarfed the coral tree. But undaunted, the coral tree began to grow its branches where it needed them to get to sunlight.

The tree looked scrawny even with the blooms. They are deciduous and lose all of their leaves before the beautiful coral buds dominate the branches. Maureen wanted a tree specialist (what does my little old brain not remember their official name) to cut it back. i refused. i was enchanted.

You see, this little old coral tree had been denied access to what it needed to thrive. It did not ask for assistance, but it strived to work out a way to make it on its own. Somewhere i have a photo of it with the coral blooms. Can’t find it.

But here it is now. A magnificent tree that didn’t deny the other tree its rights, that sought its life on its own, and grew to this:

My story is over. i was going to explain further, but i trust you will reach your own conclusions.

the darkness came
enfolding us in unknowing
and
all were sore afraid
and
folks, good folks, sought shelter
safety
for they did not know this darkness
and
in the darkness
they built their barriers to caring
for their own protection
eventually making no sense
creating war amongst good folks
with no definition of
what is was all about
except they knew
they all knew
even though
what they knew was different
and
in the darkness
someone
saw a light
saw the goodness of the folks
who had drawn
their lines in the sand
but
could not see the lines
because of the darkness
enveloping the land
and
they did not hear the someone
screaming about the light he saw
and
they did not see the light
because they were ready to war
over the lines they had drawn
in the darkness.

It was after dinner, lunch as they call it out here in the Southwest corner, a misnomer this ole Tennessee boy can accept because it’s 72 degrees with a 5 knot ocean breeze, 60% humidity, and there are no clouds.

i’m sitting in my home office after a Monday morning of medical checkups and other appointments trying to decide if i should plug ahead on several writing projects, take care of some adminstrivia (thank you, Dave Carey, for giving me such a great term for necessary busy work), or…taking a nap. Undoubtedly, i will end up taking a nap.

However, during my contemplating, i realize the air outside my air conditioned less window ( yep, don’t have air conditioning; don’t use the heaters except to knock off the chill for about two hours in the winter months, and…oh, i’ve bragged about that before), there is a cacophony of symphonies going on. It is not the neighbor young daughters in the pool with their music blaring. They don’t play a lot of Bach.

But this isn’t Bach. It’s goldfinches, mostly i think, a few mourning doves, a couple of which are nesting in our eaves; there seems to be black phoebes joining in along with a California Towhee, and a song sparrow or two. i really don’t know. i am in no way an ornithologist. i stole these from a Google search. But i do know the finches call, and i do know and love the doves cooing. And for some reason, the multiple crows and ravens (someday i will figure out the difference; we have them both) seem to be silenced during this allegro.

As i sit here listening, i am taken back home. Summers. Robins, bluebirds, sparrows, mockingbirds (oh, i long for the mockingbird trill). Mornings. Filled with the sounds of birds. Songs of the heart.

The world as it should be. Back home then or in the Southwest corner now.

Peace.