August 7: "Black Oaks," Treeness, Ambition

Mary Oliver has tree envy . . . 

Black Oaks

by:  Mary Oliver

Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary,

     or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance

     and comfort.

Not one can manage a single sound, though the blue jays

     carp and whistle all day in the branches, without

     the push of the wind.

But to tell the truth after a while I'm pale with longing

     for their thick bodies ruckled with lichen

and you can't keep me from the woods, from the tonnage

     of their shoulders, and their shining green hair.

Today is a day like any other:  twenty-four hours, a 

     little sunshine, a little rain.

Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from

     one boot to another--why don't you get going?

For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees.

And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists

     of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money,

     I don't even want to come in out of the rain.

I get Oliver in this poem.  I really do.

It's Monday, and I spent a majority of the day at my computer, doing the unglamorous side of my job at the library--creating flyers, typing up program descriptions, answering a ton of emails.  I sat down in my chair at 8 a.m., and, aside from a couple bathroom breaks, that is where I stayed for a majority of the workday.  Over seven hours staring at my monitor.  

If I had a new poem or short story or essay to share right now, I would feel as though I actually accomplished something amazing.  Added a new fragment of beauty to the universe.  But I didn't.  I simply slogged through my busyness, not  completing even half of what I set out to do this morning.  

That's why Oliver's poem hits home with me today.  Because trees don't worry about deadlines and timeclocks and productivity.  They're too busy just being trees in all their treeness--the tonnage of their shoulders and their lichen-ruckled bodies and their green hair.  That's enough for them.

Really, it should be enough for everybody.  Just being yourself is a full-time occupation.  Yet, humans are vain creatures, constantly looking for ways to get "ahead."  That's why, in the poem, Oliver's ambition is antsy, urging her to get a move on, as my dad used to say.  My parents instilled in me a pretty strong work ethic, and that, coupled with my own shallow aspirations, complicates my days tremendously.

In the last couple weeks, I've been adrift, if you haven't noticed.  When I was younger, I used to refer to these times as my "blue moods."  Now that I've been an adult for quite some time, I have other words and terms for these seasons in my life:  situational depression, anxiety, melancholy, grief, sorrow, ennui, languor, restlessness.  Rather than growing out of my blue moods, I've just come up with new and improved ways to describe them.

Oliver's black oaks can't do a lot of things that I deem important or meaningful.  They can't write a symphony or poem or love letter.  They don't have a dictionary or thesaurus to define their states of mind, and they don't need one.  Here's what they do have--deep, deep roots; sunshine; rain; snow; blue jays chattering in their limbs; mossy shadows; and the constancy of the seasons.  

That's tree happiness.  It may even be tree heaven.

Humans are more fragile and impermanent.  I'm staring out the window of my office at a maple tree across the street.  It stands taller than the library building, and it will probably still be standing there when I'm fertilizing daisies.  That maple isn't disappointed because it never finished college.  It doesn't have an abandoned novel in a desk drawer, and it doesn't envy the cedar bushes below or the seagulls wheeling above.

Here is what it has:  a cloudless blue sky, warm sun on its leaves, the waves of Lake Superior in the distance.

This afternoon while I was at work, I received a bouquet of flowers from my wife.  The note with the flowers read, "Thank you for all your hard work.  I love you."

Yes, I'm fragile and impermanent.  Full of ambition.  I don't have deep roots, and I may not be around in a month or week or day or hour.  Chances are, fifty years from now, nobody is going to remember my name.  Perhaps my picture will be hanging on a wall in some old building somewhere, and a passerby may casually wonder who I was before she walks on and forgets me.  

If you are reading this blog post 100 years from now, do me a favor.  Look at the picture of the flowers below, and remember this:

Saint Marty was here, and he was loved.  And that is enough.