The Unintentional Bonsai on the Back Forty
What my parents and a Virginia Pine taught me about tending to the earth and tending to my relationships
Sixty years ago today my dad planted a Virginia Pine on the back forty. It was his wedding day. Over the past decades that tree has grown tall and thick, pushing down roots, struggling and flourishing.
It has been a home for the birds and provided shade for those out wandering. But it has not always seen easy days. There have been storms with winds so severe the tree has occasionally been pushed clear over sideways across the field, half uprooted.
Every time the tree got knocked over dad would trim off the damaged branches sometimes removing whole hefty limbs and then hoist it’s enormous body back up straight with heavy chains straining under the groaning tug of the tractor. Thick cables were roped around the trunk and attached to anchors driven deep into the ground to offer continual support.
The tree is scarred for all it has been through. Fleshy folds of bark have grown in lumps around the various cables that have been attached over the years. It’s remaining limbs gape out of its sleeves at awkward angles. Deep veins gouge its skin.
With so many branches sawed off in uneven proportions and the whole top of the tree clipped clear off on one occasion, it now has the appearance of a large amateur bonsai tree rising out of a creek bank that ropes through the field.
Yet it somehow gets more beautiful with every clipped branch and every additional scar that leaves the world a story.
I have loved watching my parents care for and tend to this tree over the years. The decisiveness and determination to keep it alive in a way that allows it to continue to draw up water and thrive has inspired me on so many levels.
Many people (most actually) would have given up on it the first time it crashed to the ground. It has taken commitment, determination, dedication and numerous systems of support to keep it alive and healthy.
Sixty years ago today a tiny seedling put down roots in the earth beside a little stream, with little awareness of all it would weather and endure. With little knowledge of the way it would be loved and cared for over the years.
Sixty years ago today, my parents said "I do" and set down a new life together, uncertain of all the joys and sorrows they would encounter.
Through all the storms, the pruning, the scars and sunshine, they have always tended to their marriage like they tended to this tree. And they too grew more beautiful as the years went by, despite the scars.
Dad is gone now. He hoisted up the old Virginia Pine for the last time just a few months before he died two years ago. I don’t know what will happen the next time it falls, Don’t know if will be lifted again or left to rest. But every day as I have my morning meditation in the back garden I witness the sun rising up through its branches, and gratitude prickles my skin.
This tree. These parents. Showing me how to flourish in the land, teaching me what deep enduring love looks like.
Stunning piece, and incredible pictures
What a beautiful tribute to an amazing, persistent tree and loving, persistent parents. Such wisdom in the trees and people around us.