Trees Answer Life's Most Provocative Questions

Sunday May 13, 2018
San Antonio Express News

From Tolkien’s Ents in “Lord of the Rings” and Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree,” to the Whomping Willow of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, trees have forever captivated the human imagination. In David George Haskell’s new nature book, The Songs of Trees, he merges a contemplative style with scientific method and concludes that man’s anthropomorphic ruminations about trees aren’t completely misguided. 

Haskell examines the lives of a dozen trees located in diverse environments from the Amazon jungle to the boreal Canadian forests and beyond. Through lyrical prose he interprets the trees’ physiognomy in a framework that we humans can understand.

The first composition is performed by a colossal ceibo tree near the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve in western Ecuador. The ceibo illustrates the immense diversity present in the Amazon jungle. When it rains, as it does every few hours, the drops encounter various objects—leaves, wings of bats, soft moss bellies, epiphyte cups—that contribute their distinct melodies. From microbes to mammals, the ceibo supports thousands of species of life. The Amazon is a tightly woven canticle of extraordinary strength. Its long-term survival is threatened by mankind’s voracious appetite for resource consumption.

Over 3,000 miles from the ceibo in the Canadian boreal forest, tinkling sounds from the crown of a monstrous balsam fir signals the presence of chickadees rummaging its cones for sustenance. Avian memories are preserved both in the chickadees’ minds and in their social network. The balsam fir manifests memory, as well, in its ability to generate genetic diversity.

Next on the tour is the sabal palm of St. Catherine’s Island, Georgia, a tree that survives hardships that would defeat almost any other species. With rising sea levels, the sabal palm demonstrates the kind of adaptation that humans would be wise to emulate.

An elegy for Tennessee’s green ash tree follows, then the artistry of Japan’s mitsumata, and the impact of Scotland’s hazel tree on modern society.

The American giants, ponderosa pines and redwoods, illustrate the effects of fire and the progression of climate change, while the life cycle of maple trees serves a more practical purpose. 

More lessons in nature follow—Denver’s cottonwoods, Jerusalem’s olive trees, and Manhattan’s pear trees. All possess a distinctive, unique sound, an ensemble of melodious voices contributing to the overall harmony of the collective.

“In all these places,” writes Haskell, “tree songs emerge from relationship. Although tree trunks seemingly stand as detached individuals, their lives subvert this atomistic view. Life is embodied network.” 

Haskell believes that all life on this planet is interconnected and that humans do not exist separately and apart from nature—we are part of nature. Our self-serving actions to reap nature’s bounties are imperiling our planet and interfering with the harmonious balance of biological networks. 

“To listen to trees, nature’s great connectors,” concludes Haskell, “is therefore to learn how to inhabit the relationships that give life its source, substance, and beauty.”

'Scribbling kid' Cary Clack publishes memorable columns

If you have never read Cary Clack’s columns in the San Antonio Express News, you’re in luck. Trinity University Press has just published 84 of more than 2000 of Clack’s columns in book form, Clowns and Rats Scare Me (ISBN 978-1-59534-037-5, Trinity University Press, 2009, $16.95). Clack’s thoughtful and often humorous commentary examines national issues such as terrorism, politics, civil rights, and culture and scrutinizes the mundane—Martha Stewart, strip joints, clowns, rats, and snakes.

Clack credits the late Maury Maverick, Jr., legendary civil rights lawyer and journalist, for jump-starting his career. “Were it not for Maury,” Clack writes, “I wouldn’t have this column. He’s the one who took some of my scribblings to the editorial board a few years ago, and that led me to getting a column on the op-ed page and eventually getting hired.”

Some of Clack’s most soul-searching and provocative commentaries focus upon September 11, 2001. In 12 days at Ground Zero he hammered out 12 heart-breaking, poignant columns that seized the surreal tragedy that brought our nation to its knees. “The world as we know it ended Tuesday,” writes Clack. “The two airliners that destroyed the World Trade Center not only changed the geographic landscape but also forever altered the nation’s psychological and emotional landscape.”

Naomi Shihab Nye’s foreword to Clowns and Rats Scare Me pays homage to Clack’s skill in capturing his readers’ attention. “Cary Clack has a brilliant knack,” Nye writes. “More than one, actually. He writes in strong, surprising sentences, with an uncluttered, sparely elegant tone.”

Clack’s knack, however, occasionally arouses contentious feedback from his readers. One column he wrote on ethnic cleansing in Bosnia generated a heated comment that called him “a scribbling kid.” Instead of responding negatively to that characterization, he embraced it. “The truth is,” says Clack, “that growing up in San Antonio, Texas, I’ve always been a scribbling kid. My first grade teacher, Mrs. Wyatt, who was also my mother’s first grade teacher, told my mother I would be a writer. I don’t remember not writing.”