I’ve been outdoors today—cut up a dogwood tree that had died. Dogwoods make very good firewood. That’s a fact I didn’t know before moving here. I could not have recognized a dogwood tree without its foliage and flowers either, even though it has a very distinctive bark.
I can recognize many of the trees in my woods now, even in the winter, by the way they grow and by their bark. I can also recognize the call of many birds I didn’t know before.
I love now to teach my granddaughters some of these things when they’re here. The loud woodpecker or the cardinal saying, “Pretty, pretty, pretty.” The heart shaped leaves of the redbud tree. I want them to grow up with an appreciation of the things around them.
A poem of William Wordworth’s has long been one of my favorites:
“The world is too much with us; late and soon
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
Little we see in Nature that is ours.
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.”
I first came across this poem a half century ago, and it has always stayed with me. I was reminded of it again today while working outside.
If I had my life to live over, I’d give less of my heart away.
