Sippican Cottage
Donate

Worth Doin’

July 5, 2012 7 Comments

I deal in trees all day, of course.

Well, the artists formerly known as trees, anyway. I try not to wax mystical about them overmuch. They are useful, sometimes beautiful, and I like using them to enrich other people’s lives, and hence, my own.

But not all cows go to the butcher, and some trees are worth more than the sum of their firewood and end table parts parts. Some trees matter more than others. They’ve stood sentry over people’s comings and goings long enough to earn a kind of affection. Some trees are worth saving from the saw. Some trees have a story to tell.

In League City, Texas, one big Compton oak was considered a part of the town, not just part of the landscape. Saving it was “worth doin’.” It passed the ultimate worth doin’ test, the one that’s mostly overlooked these days: Would you reach into your own pocket to pay for it? Would you take your own hands out of your pockets and work at it yourself? League City said: Yes.

Certainly, moving a tree of such size involves more than a bucket and a shovel. There are dimensions to be taken, soils to be tested, trenches to be dug and on-site boxes to be built. By the time all was said and done, the great Ghirardi oak had been transformed into a Texas-sized bonsai, the center of the town’s attention as it waited for its big day.

Linda at The Task at Hand tells the story of League City’s Oak move better than I could. Go there, and luxuriate under the shade of the Ghirardi’s Compton Oak.

I’m Ashamed Of My Shoulders And My Large, Awkward Hands

July 4, 2012 5 Comments

Edward Hopper And The House By The Railroad 

Out here in the exact middle of the day,
This strange, gawky house has the expression
Of someone being stared at, someone holding
His breath underwater, hushed and expectant;

This house is ashamed of itself, ashamed
Of its fantastic mansard rooftop
And its pseudo-Gothic porch, ashamed
of its shoulders and large, awkward hands.

But the man behind the easel is relentless.
He is as brutal as sunlight, and believes
The house must have done something horrible
To the people who once lived here

Because now it is so desperately empty,
It must have done something to the sky
Because the sky, too, is utterly vacant
And devoid of meaning. There are no

Trees or shrubs anywhere–the house
Must have done something against the earth.
All that is present is a single pair of tracks
Straightening into the distance. No trains pass.

Now the stranger returns to this place daily
Until the house begins to suspect
That the man, too, is desolate, desolate
And even ashamed. Soon the house starts

To stare frankly at the man. And somehow
The empty white canvas slowly takes on
The expression of someone who is unnerved,
Someone holding his breath underwater.

And then one day the man simply disappears.
He is a last afternoon shadow moving
Across the tracks, making its way
Through the vast, darkening fields.

This man will paint other abandoned mansions,
And faded cafeteria windows, and poorly lettered
Storefronts on the edges of small towns.
Always they will have this same expression,

The utterly naked look of someone
Being stared at, someone American and gawky.
Someone who is about to be left alone
Again, and can no longer stand it.

-Edward Hirsch 

 

Month: July 2012

Picture of sippicancottage

sippicancottage

A Man Who Has Nothing In Particular To Recommend Him Discusses All Sorts of Subjects at Random as Though He Knew Everything.

Find Stuff:
Archives
Recent Comments
Recent Posts
Tags