University of Northern Iowa

WordsAuthor(s): Bill BrownSource: The North American Review, Vol. 291, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 2006), p. 4Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25127501 .

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thinking, I had planted these trees

against a wall with northern exposure.

The sun only attended them fully in the

late afternoon. Opposite, on the line I

shared with my other neighbor, the sun

light was continuous from morning to

night, but only a chain link fence marked

this boundary. I could have erected wood en trellises there to support the trees but

my imagination had been limited by the

images of medieval walls and the roman

tic allusion of growing goodness within a

sanctuary. I had ignored the sun's com

pass, and it was a wonder that any fruit

had appeared on these branches at all. The

prodigious effort that had produced that

single pear became even more remarkable,

even heartbreaking.

Now, the remaining peach has been

stricken with the same disease that took

its companion, but the top branches?

those most available to sunlight my dumb ness has finally perceived?blossomed to

produce a couple of dozen extraordinary

fruit. This top-heavy bounty was meant to

teach me a lesson, I think; a super-arboreal

demonstration of what could have been

done if I had only been sensitive to the

tree's needs. If I had not denied it sunlight.

Thus, my stewardship has been put in a

bad light also. Within the urban confines

of my back yard only my witless conceit

has flourished. We know that out of mean

environments, phenomenal progeny can

occur but how that happens begets its own thicket of theories. Years ago, and in another life, I planted 15,000 conifers

on a hillside in upstate New York. They were tiny fledglings of red and white pine and larch procured from the state conser

vation service, and it was very hot work.

One daughter brought me glasses of water during the days of my labor and the

other child helped me place the seedlings in the slits my spade made in the earth. I saw myself as Dr. Astrov in Chekhov's

"Uncle Vanya" creating and bequeathing this forest to future generations, and if I

were to be known at all it would be for

this wood in Columbia County?that would be enough. How noble!

The summer heat made me dizzy

though it could have been the vapors given off by my sweaty ego, but the trees took root and thrived. They grew to impressive size as the children also grew and went

their different ways, as I also grew apart from that hillside. Later a blight struck

the red pine and they withered, turned brown and today reportedly stand like dry sticks. The forest I had planned to leave

for others has become a field of tinder.

My friend Jeffrey Schwartz, the

anthropologist, has posited that we have

descended from the tree-living orang

utan and this ancestry may explain the

special affinity we have for trees. It is an

attraction not without some apprehen

sion?a walk in the woods can refurbish

the soul as well as threaten the body. The wilderness is important in our his

tory and literature, as singular as a

clump of cottonwoods rising above a

lone prairie farmhouse. To be under a

tree and feel its rough bark against our

backs is to center ourselves in the uni

verse. We build tree houses and ravage forests and some of us attempt to make

orchards in our city backyards.

This spring one of the apple trees is

bearing fruit. Its limbs are loaded with

small green apples and their jolly

shapes, their daily increase in weight,

bring the tree's limbs lower and lower,

reaching out for more light. This pose of

supplication may also pardon my care

less husbandry. D

KNUTE SKINNER

Particulars

The young man stands by the gate, feet planted on the path,

holding a letter.

She won't, it says, ever come back.

All he can think of is the letter.

That's all he can think of, all he will ever remember,

except for a rack of nimbus clouds

and a small bug making its way over the gravel.

BILL BROWN

Words for Randy

My nephew, a toddler,

is in the backyard

playing golf. Little putter in hand, he strikes

the ball, bends knees, watches closely, then

bangs the iron on the ground and says dahd dammit.

He hasn't mastered the G, but I can tell that he's

been following his father

around the putting green. Fut, I hear him exclaim

when he hits another,

mutter fut. He's got a ways

to go on the Ks too.

He hits a good one, smiles to heaven

and mutters something like sweet Jesus. I think about the power of language, about my successes and failures,

how closely related are curses and prayers.

She-it, I hear him say,

my brother's preferred

pronunciation since childhood.

4 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW January-February 2006

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