“Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America”

That’s the title of a poem by Matthew Olzmann. It begins:

Tell me what it’s like to live without

curiosity, without awe. To sail

on clear water, rolling your eyes

at the kelp reefs swaying

beneath you, ignoring the flicker

of mermaid scales in the mist,

looking at the world and feeling

only boredom.

You can read the rest at Tin House.

From Lacy M. Johnson in Orion Magazine, The Brutal Legacy of the Longleaf Pine:

The oldest longleaf pine tree in the world, I remember, is a nameless tree in Weymouth Woods in North Carolina. It is roughly 474 years old, taking root around the time Michelangelo took over construction of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, fifty-nine years before European colonizers arrived at Jamestown. In 2016, when the tree turned 468, visitors to the North Carolina State Parks system held a “Party for the Pine.” They celebrated by hiking to the tree, cutting cake, singing it “Happy Birthday.”

Illustration above of a longleaf pine by Edith Zimmerman.

• Matthew Olzmann
• poetry
• trees