Seasonal reflections on the majesty of tall trees

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

The cherry blossom has cast its spell and gone for another year – all we’re left with is a garden covered in what looks like snow from a distance, along with the green leaves that will see us through summer on the tree itself.

All winter long, the gnarled branches let the moonlight shine through as though we had a world of mystery outside the kitchen instead of a small plot that wouldn’t swing a substantial cat.

You could stare through those branches of the cherry blossom or the two apple trees on either side of it and be lost in the moment, amazed at the wonder of it all.

You’d probably write a poem about it if only you knew how to be a poet.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again; you can keep your flowers and your rolled lawns and your big bushes – give me a tree or two to look at and I’m happy as the proverbial Larry Gogan.

Not those little twiggy things that are designed to grow fast and act as a verdant partition between you and your nearest neighbours; I’m talking about substantial trees, the kind that huggers cannot even get their arms around.

It’s not just that trees, irrespective of shape or size, don’t require a whole lot of maintenance – a bit of pruning perhaps but for the most part they get on with their lives to let you get on with yours.

Maybe it’s that they were there before you moved into your house and – unless they are elms suffering from that disease of the Dutch – they will also be there after you have gone.

It may be the fact that you don’t really ever own trees even if they’re in your garden; they don’t grow overnight and you cannot transplant them into a ready-made copse or forest.

They mature – often more successfully than you do – and they take on personalities all of their own.

You can almost track the years through the trees, they grow bigger, wider and the changes that each season bring to them is like the return and departure of an old familiar friend.

If we moved house, I think I’d miss the trees out the back more than the bricks and mortar – and if they did contract some deadly fungus, I’d probably be heartbroken.

There is something magical about trees of all shapes and sizes – their majesty, their sheer size as you stand in their shadow, the way they change but still remain a constant presence whether in full flower or with bare branches.

They shed their leaves, stand stark and bare through the worst of winter – and then the first buds begin to show.

I could stare for hours through the branches, waving in the breeze; watch the signs of growth that mark the changing seasons, take pleasure in the greenery of summer and then bed in for another winter as the bronze and brown leaves complete the cycle.

The cherry blossom springs to life just as the longer evenings begin to arrive, and it always seems to have happened overnight – then you know that summer is really on its way.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.