The Sanity of Trees

When I first saw how the beavers had turned the part of the trail up by the Brook trail into a lake, where it had been a flowing stream, I was sorry. The trees stand in water, dying, and the tops of the pines are orange-red. The water is murky. But today, when I arrived, a great blue heron arose and flew off, as did a couple other waterfowls. When I approached the water there was a squeak and a splash, and then another, as various frogs jumped from utter invisibility into the water, where they were even more hidden. I stood still, then moved again, trying to see them. Only occasionally could my eyes actually see one of the frogs as it went leaping through the water, like a skipping stone. My vision of this place was transformed. Instead of the nasty result of the too busy beavers like a bunch of manic engineers, I saw a paradise that wasn’t meant for me, but for these others; they delighted in their new home. All was well in the woods.

After a week in which there were two road rage shootings in the east of the state, and I cannot drive five miles from the house without encountering a car honking and trying to jut in and out of cars so it can go 80 in a 45 mph zone, I hear the sound of the train whistle, though I cannot see it from deep inside the late summer woods. How different a train whistle is from a car horn. Though it is announcing that it is coming--fast--and not stopping and get out of the way, all things which would be construed as hostile, and it seems a cry of kindness, of glorying in its own, harmless, energy. How different this country would be if the trains had won out over cars. I know there were many factors, mainly having to do with who could pay off the politicians more handsomely, that made our nation be developed along highways rather than rails, in the 20th century. It seems inevitable in retrospect: a society that values the individual above all, naturally should have gone with the most individualistic means of transportation. But perhaps it wasn’t inevitable, perhaps it is the cars’ fault. Think of it: cars are an alien species and they wanted to talk over the earth so they knew just how to play off on our individualistic tendencies, to cater to them, encourage and stoke them until they were utterly out of control and the cars are really in control. We drive killing machines, we become killing machines, what's the difference, we crash and kill or get out with guns and kill. The cars are happy either way, they win. (OK: I have just finished reading VALIS by Philip K. Dick. Check out www. philipkdickfans.com.)