Paper Birch – A Study of the Nature of a Tree

Paper Birch Tree

Paper Birch © 2014 Bo Mackison

…It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
~ Robert Frost, Birches

Known as a Canadian tree,
its habitat dips into the cooler regions of the United States.
Northeast, Midwest, Pacific Northwest.

Paper Birch Tree

Three Trunks, Paper Birch © 2014 Bo Mackison

Birch tree, a variety of common names.

Paperbark birch
White birch
Paper birch
Canoe birch

Paper Birch Tree

Paper Birch Bark with New Life © 2014 Bo Mackison

Trees just beginning out in life and newer branches on settled trees are white barked,
smooth at first, then knotted with black spirals,
finally emerging as papery bark,
shades of browns, grays, greens and creams,
multiple layers,
wild and messy. And precious to the eye and hand.

Paper Birch Tree

Paper Birch Tree and Canopy © 2014 Bo Mackison

The canopy is my space. A place to spy on visitors and nature’s ways.

Like me, it too must have sun, a place of its own in full sun,
or it will not thrive.

Yet it is a pioneer. After fire or clear-cut, the birch is an early returner.
It makes do with less than tolerable conditions as long as it has its sunlight.

Paper Birch Tree

Paper Birch Bark © 2014 Bo Mackison

Its botanical name is Betula papyrifera.
Papyrus. Oh yes.

If you’ve ever handled the fibrous papyrus, woven horizontal and vertically and pressed flat,
then you will see evidence of those very first papers in this curling, peeling bark
its deep reds and oranges exposed.

Textures so full of depth, the longing to add a human element is strong
and equally strong, the urge to let it be as it is.

Paper Birch Tree

Paper Birch © 2014 Bo Mackison

An arborist writes the “catkins offer little special interest”.
I disagree. Delicate and pale green, swinging with the rhythm of spring winds.
Seeds feed the redpoll, pine siskin, chickadee; the catkins feed the ruffed grouse.

Catkins transform into nutkins, winged and fringed,
and fly the seeds away from its parent in autumn.

Roots and wings, the parent tree provides.

Paper Birch Tree

My Three Trunk Seat © 2014 Bo Mackison

Once the birch was utilitarian –
Bark as canoe cover.
Containers – baskets, bowls, baby carriers.
Comforts – mats, bedding.
Giver of light – torches.
Tool maker – spears, bows and arrows.
Transportation – snowshoes and sleds.
Sustenance – birch syrup, beer, medicinal tonics.

My birch?

It continues its tradition as a container – as I perch in its tri-trunked seat.
As a comfort – when I hold its wildness in my hands
As a giver of light – of the interior sort.

And as sustenance – for my heart and soul.

Sun Burst through an Old Oak Tree

IMG_5209

Sun Burst Oak Tree © 2014 Bo Mackison

“Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it’s all right…

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes…

~ George Harrison, lyrics

Twilight and Transition – Shadows Deepen Upon the Earth

Prairie Twilight

Wisconsin Twilight © 2014 Bo Mackison

“I love that the morning’s sunrise does not define itself by last night’s sunset.” ~ Steve Maraboli

Last evening, twilight was not a fiery, orange blaze sunset, filling the sky with colors indescribable.

It was instead of red ball burning through the haze of clouds, dropping off the horizon in grays with streaks of pinks. A quiet affair, as sunsets go. Still awe-inspiring. Always awe-inspiring.

I watch every sunrise and sunset, weather permitting. It is ritual for me.

They mark the beginning and the end of each day cycle for me, not only their beauty, but deeply in my consciousness. Beginnings. Endings.

Tonight ends and so ends this day, and I have done all I can.

Morning comes and I begin yet another day. What opportunities will this day offer? What opportunities will I accept? No comparisons required, no “this sunset was better than yesterday’s sunset”.

Each sunset – magnificent. Every sunrise – a blessing and a gift.

Endings and beginnings.

It is a lesson repeated daily. It’s easy to grasp on to what is, resistant to what is yet to come. And still sunrise follows sunset, endlessly throughout our brief time on this earth.

Always an ending, always a beginning.

Overflowing with Color, There is Nothing Planned or Tidy about the Prairie

July Prairie Flowers

July Prairie Flowers © 2014 Bo Mackison

…In early stages of its growth, the grass is interspersed with little flowers, the violet, the strawberry blossom and others of the most delicate structure. When the grass grows higher, these disappear, and taller flowers displaying more lively colors, take their place; and still later, a series of still higher but less delicately formed flowers appear on the surface.” Captain Basil Hall, 1827

Thimbleweed, milkweed, tickseed, spiderwort, rattlesnake master, yellow coneflower, black-eyed susan, butterfly weed, bergamot, rosinweed, compass plant…

Nothing fancy about most of these names – common household names. Tick, milk, thimble, cone, black eye, compass, butterfly, seed, weed.

But there is everything wild and fancy about the prairie itself.

The tall grass prairies of the eastern range are far different from the short grass prairies of the plains. I seldom think prairie when I drive through the plains in Oklahoma, Kansas, eastern Colorado — I think grasslands when I see shortgrass prairie — hard to find, nearly extinguished, maybe 3% of the grasslands from the 1800s remain.

But those that have survived, mostly in the Flint Hills of Kansas, those are the wide undulating grasses of which the poets once wrote with eloquence, and the land that sent despair through European settlers who spoke of the eerie sounds of the relentless winds.

The eastern range of prairie – the tallgrass prairies which receive the most rainfall of all prairie types – are those I know.

Prairie - Pope Farms Conservatory

Wisconsin Tallgrass Prairie  © 2014 Bo Mackison

Replete with thick stands of grasses and flowers, these prairies are nearly impossible to wade through in July and August when the tallest of both are in full bloom. Matted thick, no space left untouched. It takes perseverance and a disregard for claustrophobia to walk in the midst of tall prairie.

And never mind that you are trampling plants and grasses as you step  if this is a remnant or one of the first restorations from the 1930s/40s and long established — this is one of the very factors that made the prairie what it is, the constant trampling by animals. These are plants that rebound, no matter if the visitor is man, animal, wind, or fire.

These plants continue to thrive — as long as you don’t cultivate the earth itself, and destroy their roots.

Without a complex knowledge of one’s place, and without the faithfulness to one’s place on which such knowledge depends, it is inevitable that the place will be used carelessly and eventually destroyed.  ~ Wendell Berry (1972)

The undisturbed prairies are bountiful. A third to a half of all the plants are forbs, the flower producing plants, and attract vast numbers of pollinators. New species of flowers – perhaps as many as 17 new plants each week from mid July through mid August – come into bloom.

This is the tall grass prairie, and what a wild and precious habitat it is…

 

 

Grounded, Fiery, Drought and Ice – A Prairie Survival Guide to Beauty

Prairie Sky

Prairie Sky © 2014 Bo Mackison

Survival

Prairie survives the extremes.
Frigid winter, forty below, snow cover measured in feet
and blazing midsummer heat, a hundred degrees and more.
Tolerance to the extremes; hallmark of survival.

And always, always, the winds blow, fierce,
plants loose, nimble, they tolerate the constant forces.
Grasses, shrubs and forbs, some eight or ten feet high,
bend to the earth and still they survive,
not only survive, they thrive in these extremes.

Raging fires only strengthen the prairie. Re-birthing,
it knows survival when left to its natural course.
Let it burn, let it burn, fiercely burn; it seeds the earth.
The fire sustains.

Extra-ordinary, these plants. With sparse rain,
summer drought, the prairie conserves,
exposing only the most essential.
Two thirds hidden, it protects – deep-rooted,
stretching far into the darkest of depths.

Grounded and firm in their intention to hold on,
sucking moisture from the ages. Satiated.

Evolution’s choice, managing on just enough.
Just enough.

Survival.