It could be headlined as a “tree hugger’s” worst nightmare. A recent newspaper article told the sad story about the necessity of cutting down more than 40,000 trees in Galveston, Texas. The trees were irreparably damaged by the salt water storm surge Hurricane Ike boiled up in September 2008. Trees that have lost 50% of their canopy are being axed.
For some reason, what popped into my head after reading the article was Joyce Kilmer’s poem, Trees. Remember it?
The first verse goes like this: I think that I shall never see, A poem lovely as a tree. And the last verse: Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree. Whether spiritual or not, there does seem to be an emotional connection between mankind and trees.
Well, call it destiny or serendipity, but 80 of Galveston’s fallen evergreen oak trees will soon be transported to Mystic Seaport’s shipyard instead of ending up in a Texas landfill. That’s a good thing.
The trees’ lumber will be used to authentically rebuild the frame on the Charles W. Morgan whaling ship, now in dry dock and undergoing a three-year restoration. Quentin Snediker, director of the Museum’s shipyard, hopes that Galveston residents will feel somewhat compensated, knowing some of their fallen trees will have an important and historical role in the Morgan’s restoration. Ironically, the rich shipbuilding histories of Galveston, TX and Mystic, CT will now be forever linked because of Hurricane Ike’s devastation to that southern barrier island.
Perhaps someone should write a poem – or a sea shanty – about the trees of Galveston taking their place in maritime history at Mystic Seaport. Any poets or composers out there who care to give it a try?
Blog written by Trudi Busey
My poem, in response to the July 26, 2009 article:
“In A Mystic Seaport”
Oak of legend, stalwart I stood
On Galvez Isle despite the Flood.
Gray, these tendrils, beard of the sages,
Waving homeward, ships archaic.
Logs of yore, profane, prosaic
Writ by captains penning their pages:
Thrice, the tale is told of a wind,
A thrashing sea, an isle to rend.
‘Hundred, ‘Fifteen, ‘Eight…the years. **
In each, there came in cog of gears–
Not unlike a pendulum watch–
Steady beats. Awhile the tidal
Surge retreats afore the idol, **
Shifting sands begin to unscotch
Yielding base of granite; no harm
Yet done the bronze defiant arm.
Like the palm that holds to the sky
This oak did branch to Heaven high.
Prayer said I; thanks did I give
Gods of Oak, the nations knowing,
Each by name, in groves a-growing.
Broken, though with spirit to live,
Salt has hurt the cambium core
And soon, this tree…exists no more.
Mine which held this verdant, unshorn,
And mossy cap, insists that borne
Shall these arms be; strong are they still.
Green the scaly bark, now ashen,
Borne away for yards to fashion
Frames which strengthen firstly, the mill;
Dry, the dock, in whose Easterly hands
A whaler, Charles W. Morgan, stands.
Resurrection: life as a ship!
Her bones are mine between the slip;
Ribs of iron, they might be as such.
Far away the saws are silent
Duty done, their chains once violent
Sit in awe of oaks, in as much
Sawyers let them; prideful and bold,
The stoutest trees are wrought and sold.
Winter fires of kindling combust
The youngest trees, their fates unjust.
Farther East, where mystic her sea
Laps at port of call, awaiting
Timber fresh from Ike abating,
Life anew, a beam they’ll make me!
Tejas breeze will taunt me ’til then,
To sail on home and back again.
Twila, c. 2009
______________
** Devastating Hurricane years: 1900, 1915, 2008.
** The ‘idol’ is the 1900 Storm Memorial with the upraised arm and palm that rises from the sand.
This is a poem I wrote about how some of Galveston’s storm damaged oaks were salvaged and sent to Mystic Seaport , CT for use in the restoration of a whaling ship.
(I am a 41 year resident of the Texas Gulf Coast, living seven miles inland from the upper portion of Galveston Bay.)