A few weeks ago, in Nerissa’s writing group, she read a prompt about trees from a book by Richard Powers, Overstory. One of the participants then drafted a beautiful essay about her relationship to trees, both in her yard and in the world. J’s essay made me think about a song I have been trying to learn on the recorder.
Playing the recorder is one of my pandemic endeavors. I am not a musical person. I really didn’t even know how to read music before I started taking lessons. Studying a musical instrument has been a stretch for me. The song I have been trying to learn, “Where have all the green trees gone” is Swedish with very evocative lyrics.
The essay made me ponder the wetness of our own yard. As I sit here writing, I am looking out at a wide swath of partly dry, partly wet, partly hardened clay in my backyard. This area has spread into an ever-larger mass over the 30 years that we have owned the house. As you might remember we had two floods in our basement within a six-week period. The floods made me acutely aware of climate change and its personal impact. I hope to plant some of the trees J mentioned including the American hornbeam and a river birch.
The lyrics of “Where Have All The Green Trees Gone” are as follows:
Where have all the green trees gone?
Why have they spoiled rivers?
Why do people do these things?
Takers, yes-not givers.
Each of us must do his share,
So our children know we care;
Will you help us save the earth?
Won’t you please be givers?
These lyrics sum up for me climate change in a way many other things have not. When I think about the meaning of the words, takers and givers, and the contrast the song illustrates, they evoke the responsibility we all have for helping other people. Because the song puts children front and center, it reinforces the imperative that we must avert climate change so that our children and grandchildren have an earth to inherit.