Illustrated Guide to Familiar American Trees

[y66]

Illustrated Guide to Familiar American Trees

 

by Charlie Smith

 

I don't get it about the natural world.

Like, greenery,

without people in it, is supposed to do what?

 

City sunlight, I say, how can you beat it?

the walk to the pool after work, shine

caught in the shopkeeper's visor, bursts.

 

I see myself moving around New York,

snapping my fingers, eating fries.

 

My ex-wife's out in California.

 

I wish she was over on Bank Street,

up on the second floor,

and I was on the way there

to call to her from the sidewalk.

 

There's a cypress on that block, two honey

locusts and an oak. I love those trees

like my own brothers.

 

from Word Comix. © W.W. Norton & Co., 2009. Reprinted with permission at The Writer's Almanac.

 

I think this guy gets it. I wonder if he felt this way about nature before she moved to California.

[kfay]

I have to disagree with you on this.

 

This guy has no interest in getting out to see the natural world for what reason?

 

It seems to me that it would be new and exciting, seeing something that maybe you've never seen before.

 

Yet here he is in NYC wishing his ex-wife still lived in town so he could stand outside her window where he's obviously waited-probably in misplaced hope-countless hours?

 

He's stuck in a rut walking to the same pool every day after the same day at work munching on french fries and getting fat, snapping his greasy fingers.

 

He's living a boring country lifestyle in a city-scape... I think this must be the worst kind of life.

[y66]

The guy is definitely not a John Muir type. But I don't think he's disinterested in nature. If his ex-wife calls and asks him to come out and spend a few days hiking in the Sierra Nevadas, I think he's going to be on the next plane. I also think he'll be smart enough to leave his finger snapping, frency fry eating ways behind. Of course, if things work out, he'll probably revert. B)