When the county spread blacktop on the road west of town, one farmer held out. “That cottonwood is too close to the roadbed,” the boss told him, pointing toward the one out front of his place. “We’re going to have to take it out tomorrow.”
Farmer said no way, but the country said, “Tomorrow morning, it goes.”
Road crew left. The next morning, early, that farmer was sitting in front of his cottonwood, legs crossed, arms cradling a shotgun.
That tree of his is still right there.
Stubbornly, our trees grace our lives out here in the cold and the heat and the forever wind. Like us, they’re not native--they’re immigrants, still unique on a sea of grass, never quite out of sight amid endless row crops. A single tree against an open sky may well be the most iconic image there is of the world we’d like to call our own. Our trees are monuments. They tell our stories.
Landscape photographs I've taken of our trees
will be up in the Garden Café at Sioux Center Health,
where it will stay for some time before moving to the Library.
Stop by and visit.
No comments:
Post a Comment