Figure 1 – The tree of love and remembrance, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

The true wilderness is one thing but in suburbia it becomes a matter of closing your ears and eyes a bit – well more than a bit. You’ve got to learn to ignore the sights and sounds of man, to shut  your eyes to fences and the periodic human spore lying about. Years ago in Ithaca, I would go into the gorges and position myself so that I couldn’t see the bridges or any human signs. I would let the roar of the waterfalls drown out the sounds of mankind – the street noises. Then I could marvel and imagine an unspoiled world.

The other afternoon I went into the woods – a sudden refuge of darkness in a brilliantly lit world. You can feel the coolness instantly and this frees you to let your mind wander. You shut your eyes to any intruding images of human habitation. Then I spotted this two-trunked black birch with graffiti all over it. I was dismayed at first. But then I realized that it was covered in little declarations of love. Judging, from the size of the trunks I would guess that this tree dated back at least to the 1960’s. What of these lovers. Their writings are now all stretched out – scars to the tree, but testimonials nonetheless. You wonder what has happened to all of these people. Have their “dreams lost grandeur coming true?”

The tree itself has been meticulously cared for by the stewards of the forest. There is a gouge covered in tar. And most remarkably, where a limb has broken off and the balm of creosote also applied, the scar remaining is itself heart shaped.  I shall call this the tree of love and remembrance.