Smoke

Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird,Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight,Lark without song, and messenger of dawnCircling above the hamlets as they nest;Or else, departing dream, and shadowy formOf midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts;By night star-veiling, and by dayDarkening the light and blotting out the sun;Go thou my incense upward from this hearth,And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame. ***

Only God Can Make A Tree

It's New Deal Tuesday. The famous "Only God Can Make A Tree" poster was created by Federal Art Project artist Stanley Thomas Clough - he did this one and this one too. Clough was a printer, lithographer, illustrator, and etcher. The title of the poster is taken from Joyce Kilmer's poem "Trees," which you can read below.

I THINK that I shall never seeA poem lovely as a tree.A tree whose hungry mouth is prestAgainst the sweet earth's flowing breast;A tree that looks at God all day,And lifts her leafy arms to pray;A tree that may in summer wearA nest of robins in her hair;Upon whose bosom snow has lain;Who intimately lives with rain.Poems are made by fools like me,But only God can make a tree.

Save The Redwoods

"Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot defend themselves or run away. And few destroyers of trees ever plant any; nor can planting avail much toward restoring our grand aboriginal giants. It took more than three thousand years to make some of the oldest of the Sequoias, trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. Through all the eventful centuries since Christ's time, and long before that, God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand storms; but he cannot save them from sawmills and fools; this is left to the American people." - John Muir

The Mountains Are

"The secret of the mountains is that they simply exist, as I do myself: the mountains exist simply, which I do not. The mountains have no "meaning," they are meaning; the mountains are. The sun is round. I ring with life, and the mountains ring, and when I can hear it, there is a ringing that we share. I understand all this, not in my mind but in my heart, knowing how meaningless it is to try to capture what cannot be expressed, knowing that mere words will remain when I read it all again, another day."- Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard