exist. They enjoyed a good party while the forest burned. I didn’t know whether to be impressed or incensed. It all seemed very natural, just like the lightning on August 24, 1987, that started it all. VI ne day my counselor sug- V ^Bgested that I draw trees about the people in my life. I have a friend who’s spent time in prison and is forever a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He’s an old Douglas Fir, tall, scarred, and respected. Cathleen is a Willow in winter, flexible in the extreme but dormant, recovering from that last relationship. My mother is a Palo Verde, the gentle shade tree of the Arizona desert. This therapy is for those who tend to be analytical. Amazing. A tree can capture a person’s essence more truly than a seven-course description. Look again. The tree itself has an essence beyond definition. No wonder it’s so hard to relate guidebook facts to that real live being in the woods. Me, I’m an Oak, just budding in spring. Terry, a wise and durable friend, is a young Sequoia. VII W Tou can tell the symmetrical spire of a recent vintage Giant JL Sequoia a mile away. Turns out there are quite a few around: the parking lot of Mt. Angel Abbey, in several Portland parks, even in Europe where they call it the Wellingtonia. I counted seven within a mile of home. Francis Ferguson trimmed the lower limbs of his Sequoia, leaving several piles of cordwood. Thus, I saw the bloodstained heart in each sawed-off stick, the sacred heart of a sacred tree, a tree that goes back to the time of the dinosaurs and land bridging the continents. The Sequoia once dominated both North America and Europe. My three-foot, eight-inch Christmas tree had prickly strings of overlapping scales instead of twigs and needles. It too was a Giant Sequoia. Mr. Cerfoy, my landlord, gave his permission to plant it in the back yard. A library book, The Enduring Giants by Joseph Enbeck, Jr., related some impressive facts about the Sequoia. General Sherman: biggest of all living things, 280 feet tall, 28 feet in diameter. Lifespan: next to the longest, around 3,300 years. The bark gets nearly a foot thick and protects it from fire. Indeed the clearing action of fire allows light and warmth to reach seedlings which would otherwise not survive. Sequoia grow from tiny seeds, 90,000 to the pound, released from small but elegant cones. The Giant Sequoia is one of the fastest growing trees, even into old age. Besides humankind, the main cause of death is falling over due to sheer weight. Why were they nearly extinct? Nature plays rough. The ice ages pushed Europe’s Sequoias into the Alps and the Mediterranean. Nevada’s stand of Se- quoia were cut off from water a couple million years ago as the Sierras rose from two to fourteen thousand feet. On New Years Day 1988, Kwanza, my nine-year-old boy, dug a hole with a halfsized shovel, a pick bigger than himself, I likened the planting to the birth of a child. My boys and I might nurture the Sequoia for the first while, but we had to leave it to other guardians and to its own powers to inspire respect. and seventy pounds of tenacity. Thirteen of us gathered under clear cold skies. I said a few words. I likened the planting to the birth of a child. My boys and I might nurture the Sequoia for the first while, but we had to leave it to other guardians and to its own powers to inspire respect. I hoped it would live long into a world even my great grandchildren couldn’t imagine. The landlord’s wife, Patricia Pette, offered the dedication: May God cause the rain to fall and keep this tree healthy the sun to show off its greenery and the snow to dress it in winter So it can provide a home for birds and small animals and make people happy Each of us pitched two or three shovelfuls of dirt around the tree. Then we visited Don Baisinger, a retired forester living a few blocks away, and saw the forty-foot Sequoia he planted as a seed in 1951. Weather is more important to me now. We’ve had wind, ice and snow in the weeks since the planting, and maybe not enough rain. I worry about my little baby Sequoia. Trees don’t mind if grown men are sentimental. I’ve come up with a bumper sticker: “Tree huggers make better lovers.” I've found a Sugar Maple who agrees. vni There’s always more to learn. I don’t even know the trees across the street. I’d like to read trees like a composer reads music, effortlessly. I can’t tell a Birch from a Cottonwood from an Aspen. Deciduous trees (the leafy kind) are evolutionarily more advanced. Maybe next summer. Writer Jon Robertson lives in Portland. This is his first story in CSQ. Artist Carl Smool lives in Seattle. A frequent contributor to CSQ, his last illustration was for “Fiddling for Water Buffaloes.” For hamburgers m 6? homemade desserts 33 NW 23rd Pl 223-0287 Mon-Fri 7:30-7:00 Sat 7:30-4:00 SPRING DRAUGHT 77LW OUT! Our seasonal ale to celebrate the arrival of warmer days. Smooth, medium bodied and delicately hopped. Available for smart people in Oregon's finest drinking establishments. BRIDGEPORT BREWERY & BREW PUB 1313 N.W. Marshall • Portland, Oregon (241-7179) Distributed by UNITED DISTRIBUTING (274-9999) Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988 33
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