The tree struggles to stay rooted in the good Earth.
I love trees, and this tree is a favorite because it is so strong and doesn’t give up on what appears to be a hopeless situation, maybe the tree doesn’t know it’s hopeless.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, / You cannot say, or guess, for you know only / A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, / And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, / And the dry stone no sound of water. Only / There is shadow under this red rock, / (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), / And I will show you something different from either / Your shadow at morning striding behind you / Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; / I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land: I. The Burial of the Dead, 1922
This photograph of a tree root was taken on the banks of the Rancocas river. Rancocas Creek is a tributary of the Delaware River in southwestern New Jersey in the United States. The creek’s main stem is 8.3 miles (13.4 km) long, with a North Branch of 28.3 miles (45.5 km) and a South Branch flowing 21.7 miles (34.9 km).[1] The creek system drains a rural agricultural and forested area on the western edge of the Pinelands north and northeast of Camden and the New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia.
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2 Comments
Given that we see so little of a tree’s root system, maybe this tree is actually doing fine!
Jim; Great observation, You really dig deep and have a great understanding of the nature of things.