tree
The locust trees shiver a bit, even in the sunlight; and the poplars are talking together in such loud whispers I can hear them way over here. They are discussing September (if you must know).
Letters of E. B. White, rev. edition edited by Martha White (New York: Harper Perennial, 2007), 66.
The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way.
Letter to Reverend Dr. Trusler, August 23, 1799, in The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 702.
Light is not easily perceived unless it falls on something. And much of the time the largest, most complex object visible outdoors will be a tree, or a mass of them—a wood, a forest. Therefore it is often when we look at trees that we actually see the beauty of a certain light.
A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2011), 110.
A tree that lives a thousand years might know something about survival.
Quoted in The Man Who Planted Trees by Jim Robbins (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2012), 8.
Decades ago, Katsuhiko Matsunaga, a marine chemist at Hokkaido University in Japan, discovered that when tree leaves decompose, they leach acids into the ocean that help fertilize plankton. When plankton thrive, so does the rest of the food chain. In a campaign called Forests Are Lovers of the Sea, fishermen have replanted forests along coasts and rivers to bring back fish and oyster stocks. And they have returned.
“Why Trees Matter,” The New York Times, April 11, 2012.
There are five billion trees in the world. I looked it up. Under every tree is a shadow, right? So, then, what makes night? I’ll tell you: shadows crawling out from under five billion trees! Think of it!
Dandelion Wine (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), 35.
Strange that so few ever come to the woods to see how the pine lives and grows and spires, lifting its evergreen arms to the light,—to see its perfect success.
The Maine Woods (Boston, MA: Ticknor and Fields, 1864), 123–24.
I think elm-birth is the prettiest fairy tale in the city’s wonderbook, for the big trees are delivered at night, when earth hangs down away from the light and fowls are stirring on their roosts. In all the long swing of time there has never been a fortnight such as this—these midnights when late strolling citizens come suddenly on a giant elm, arriving furtively in the marketplace and sliding into position for early risers to discover on their way to work.
“Education,” in One Man’s Meat (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1944), 57.
Halfway up the slope, guarded by a group of tall, slim cypress trees, nestled a small strawberry-pink villa, like some exotic fruit lying in the greenery. The cypress trees undulated gently in the breeze, as if they were busily painting the sky a still brighter blue for our arrival.
My Family and Other Animals (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 16.