Gum Tree Quotes

You can’t turn love on and off like a light switch, no matter how hard you try. All you can do is wall it off, one brick at a time, until you’ve created an impenetrable fortress around your emotions. And once that fortress is built, you camouflage it so well that even you can’t see it anymore.

He always was someone. Because the core of the sweet gum tree never changes. Like Nick, the deep red wood stays true to its nature. Strong, and steady, and pure.

To my surprise, Nick reached under his shirt and pulled out the half-heart pendant. With his gaze fixed on mine, he slid the chain over my head. “No one should have to go through life with only half a heart,” he whispered.

I promise you this. I’ll love you until the day I die even if I have to live without you. And if it’s fifty years from now, you come home, Nick Anderson. Do you hear me? I’ll be waiting on you.

Do you want to know the real reason I came back, Alix?” It was because of you. You’re my roots. Wherever you are would be home to me.

A sweet gum tree is the chameleon of wood, it’s corky exterior hiding it’s inner ability to imitate anything from cherry to mahogany. But it’s real value, one unrealized by most people, is it’s deep red heart, steady and strong.

There are more kinds of hurt than physical ones, hurts that run ever deeper and leave bigger scars, and not even Nick could protect me from himself.

Lies and half-truths hurt not only the liar, but the people they love most.

I’ll marry you,” I told him decisively. “That way, we can both have kids someday.” He grinned, those dimples emerging in a blaze of glory. “Yeah, you probably would.

A magpie can be happy or sad: sometimes so happy that he sits on a high, high gum tree and rolls the sunrise around in his throat like beads of pink sunlight; and sometimes so sad that you would expect the tears to drip off his beak. This magpie was like that.

We’re almost there,” I whispered in his ear. “Don’t you die, damn it. If you do, I’ll never speak to you again.

This isn’t a church social, Sweetheart. You aren’t going to be able to save me this time.

Life isn't kind, and we rarely get what we want out of it. We do the best we can, and we keep putting one foot in front of the other.

But we southerners know that you can insult someone as much as you want so long as you add that "bless her heart" to the end of your comment.

I love you. There hasn't been a single day in the last 15 years that I haven't regretted not telling you when I had a chance.

The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. And you couldn’t be indifferent to him if your life depended on it.

God, I can’t lose you again.” His whisper was harsh, filled with pain. “Not now, when I’ve waited so long to hold you. I think it would kill me. But I’m so damn scared you’ll hate me when you find out the truth.

There’s a part of everyone that needs to be taken care of. Denying it exists doesn’t change the truth, it only makes you very lonely.

...while I was vowing to save Nick, he had taken on the job of being my protector and staunchest defender

Mothers. Can’t live with them, can’t hit them over the head with a board.

He was the most gorgeous hunk of male it had ever been my privilege to stare at, and darn his hide, he knew exactly what I was thinking. His smile turned to a smug grin to so full of satisfaction, that I couldn’t help myself. I laughed.

Nick? Have you ever…” ”No.” He lifted his head again, studied me. “I’ve thought about it, but it never seemed right.” The idea of him making love to anyone else sent a shaft of pain straight through my middle. “You better wait on me, damn it.” ”I don’t think I have much choice.” He brushed my hair back. “You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted, Alix, the only one I’ll ever want. That’s a promise.

You’re not old enough to have a real boyfriend,” he muttered. I stiffened. “If I’m old enough to have babies, then I’m damn well old enough to have a boyfriend,” I ground out. “And just as soon as I decide on who it’s going to be, I’ll let you know.

Then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely but too well, Of one not easily jealous but, being wrought, Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, Albeit unused to the melting mood, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinable gum. Set you down this, And say besides that in Aleppo once, Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk Beat a Venetian and traduced the state, I took by th' throat the circumcised dog And smote him thus.

The idea of him making love to anyone else sent a shaft of pain straight through my middle. “You better wait on me, damn it.” “I don’t think I have much choice.” He brushed my hair back. “You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted, Alix, the only one I’ll ever want. That’s a promise.

That was also the year I discovered Boys. Or maybe I should say they discovered me. By then I knew what they wanted and I wasn’t buying it.

I’d read enough to know that one of the symptoms of grief was a deep anger at the loved one who’d died, anger that impaired your judgement, made you want to scream and curse because they’d left you. But Nick hadn’t died, and I didn’t realize that I was suffering the symptoms of grief.

I’m sorry, Nick,” I whispered, slipping his pendant from my neck. “I didn’t know what else to do.

But there are more kinds of hurt than physical ones, hurts that run ever deeper and leave bigger scars, and not even Nick could protect me from himself.

Alice came upon treasure after treasure: everlasting daisies in pastel pinks and yellows, trails of grey and white feathers, boughs heavy with blossom buds on the gum trees. She breathed in the warm earth and appreciated the sky, a blend of soldier-crab blue and every shade of purple in a pipi shell. The desert's an old dream of the sea.

But at eight, I only knew one thing. Mother said God put each of us on this earth for a purpose, and that day I decided mine was to save Nick Anderson” -The Sweet Gum Tree

The town itself was a hard, distant storyland; you could see it from afar. There was all the straw-like landscape, and marathons of sky. Around it, a wilderness of low scrub and gum trees stood close by, and it was true, it was so damn true: the people sloped and slouched.

Thin ribbons of fear snake bluely through you like a system of rivers. We need a cloudburst or soothing landscape fast, to still this panic. Maybe a field of dracaena, or a vast stand of sugar pines—generous, gum-yielding trees—to fill our minds with vegetable wonder and keep dread at bay.

Children see God every day; they just don't call it that. It's the summer sky painted with cumulus clouds by day and sequined with a million stars by night. It's the sweet whispers of sweet gum trees and the sounds riding the tops of honeysuckle-scented breezes. Children feel God stuffed into brown fluffy dogs with stitches strong enough to withstand a good squeeze, and on the lips of round women who can't get enough sugar from Chocolate. I began to believe that God is us and nature, beauty and love, mystery and majesty, everything right and good.

Helping someone because you feel sorry for them is one thing, but doing it because you like them and care about what happens to them is better. That means you aren't doing it for yourself.

The faint aroma of gum and calico that hangs about a library is as the fragrance of incense to me. I think the most beautiful sight is the gilt-edged backs of a row of books on a shelf. The alley between two well-stocked shelves in a hall fills me with the same delight as passing through a silent avenue of trees. The colour of a binding-cloth and its smooth texture gives me the same pleasure as touching a flower on its stalk. A good library hall has an atmosphere which elates. I have seen one or two University Libraries that have the same atmosphere as a chapel, with large windows, great trees outside, and glass doors sliding on noiseless hinges.

I glance back at the painting of the forest. At first there doesn't seem to be much besides the shadowy gum trees. But if you peer a little closer it is dark and deep like a well with no bottom. Anything could be hidden there, if you bothered to look hard enough.

Albeit unusèd to the melting mood, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinal gum. Set you down this; And say besides,—that in Aleppo once, Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk Beat a Venetian

They banged doors, they shouted Trick or Treat and their brown paper bags began to fill with incredible sweets. They galloped with their teeth glued shut with pink gum. They ran with red wax lips bedazzling their faces. But all the people who met them at doors looked like candy factory duplicates of their own mothers and fathers. It was like never leaving home. Too much kindness flashed from every window and every portal. What they wanted was to hear dragons belch in basements and banged castle doors.

In reference to the search for Lincoln's killers as it took to the Maryland swamps: "The method of searching the swamps is simple yet arduous. First, the troops assemble on the edge of bogs with names like Allen’s Creek, Scrub Swamp, and Atchall’s Swamp, standing at loose attention in the shade of a thick forest of beech, dogwood, and gum trees. Then they form two lines and march straight forward, from one side to the other. As absurd as it seems to the soldiers, marching headlong into cold mucky water, there is no other way of locating Booth and Herold. Incredibly, eighty-seven of these brave men will drown in their painstaking weeklong search for the killers.

There are psychologists who think that consciousness accompanies brain processes and is determined by them but doesn't itself exert any influence on them. Something like the reflection of a tree in water; it couldn't exist without the tree, but it doesn't in any way affect he tree. I think it's all stuff and nonsense to say that there can be love without passion; when people say love can endure after passion is dead they're talking of something else, affection, kindliness, community of taste and interest, and habit . . . Of course there can be desire without love. Desire isn't passion. Desire is the natural consequence of the sexual instinct . . . That's why women are foolish to make a song and dance if their husbands have an occasional flutter when the time and place are propitious . . . what is sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose . . . Unless love is passion, it's not love, but something else; and passion thrives not on satisfaction but impediment . . . When passion seizes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honor is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive . . . and if it doesn't destroy it dies. It may be then that one is faced with the desolation of knowing that one has wasted the years of one's life, that one's brought disgrace upon oneself, endured the frightful pang of jealousy, swallowed every bitter mortification, that one's expended all one's tenderness, poured out all the riches of one's soul on a poor drab, a fool, a peg on which one hung one's dreams, who wasn't worth a stick of chewing gum.

Do you want to know the real reason I came back, Alix? It was because of you. You’re my roots. Wherever you are would be home to me.

Can you forget about me?” His eyes shimmered with tears.  “No.  Not if I live to be a hundred.” “Then don’t ask me to do what you can’t.

Then something immense came into view; an enormous shock-haired giant with his arms stretched out. It was the big gum-tree outside Mrs. Stubbs' shop, and as they passed by there was a strong whiff of eucalyptus. And now big spots of light gleamed in the mist. The shepherd

Slanders, sir. For the satirical rogue says here that old men have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams—all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward.

The only signs she would need to read would be in the sky, rather than the shadows and clouds that passed over her father's face, alerting her to whether he was the monster, or the man who turned a gum tree into a writing desk.

This is the bush, as Australian as gum trees, white Australia's bush legend: tough, adaptable, battlers in hard times, opportunists in good, conquerors of a continent. Eucalypts could almost teach newcomers how to be Australian.

With the gun which was too big for him, the breech-loader which did not even belong to him but to Major de Spain and which he had fired only once, at a stump on the first day to learn the recoil and how to reload it with the paper shells, he stood against a big gum tree beside a little bayou whose black still water crept without motion out of a cane-brake, across a small clearing and into the cane again, where, invisible, a bird, the big woodpecker called Lord-to-God by negroes, clattered at a dead trunk. It was a stand like any other stand, dissimilar only in incidentals to the one where he had stood each morning for two weeks; a territory new to him yet no less familiar than that other one which after two weeks he had come to believe he knew a little--the same solitude, the same loneliness through which frail and timorous man had merely passed without altering it, leaving no mark nor scar, which looked exactly as it must have looked when the first ancestor of Sam fathers' Chickasaw predecessors crept into it and looked about him, club or stone axe or bone arrow drawn and ready, different only because, squatting at the edge of the kitchen, he had smelled the dogs huddled and cringing beneath it and saw the raked ear and side of the bitch that, as Sam had said, had to be brave once in order to keep on calling herself a dog, and saw yesterday in the earth beside the gutted log, the print of the living foot. He heard no dogs at all. He never did certainly hear them. He only heard the drumming of the woodpecker stop short off, and knew that the bear was looking at him. he did not move, holding the useless gun which he knew now he would never fire at it, now or ever, tasting in his saliva that taint of brass which he had smelled in the huddled dogs when he peered under the kitchen.

No silver seagrass or salt pans, no soldier crabs or sea tides to read, no seaweed necklaces to wear, and no skies filled with ghostly wisps of virga, warning of storms out at sea. On either side of the flat highway the land was thirsty, dry as a cracked tongue. Somehow, though, the strange landscape teemed with life. It hummed in Alice's ears, the clicking buzz of cicadas, the occasional wild cackle of kookaburras. There was the occasional blur of color where wildflowers grew at the base of gum trees. Some had trunks as white as fairytale snow while others we're an ochre color, as glossy as if covered in a slick of wet paint.

THE CONDITIONAL Say tomorrow doesn’t come. Say the moon becomes an icy pit. Say the sweet-gum tree is petrified. Say the sun’s a foul black tire fire. Say the owl’s eyes are pinpricks. Say the raccoon’s a hot tar stain. Say the shirt’s plastic ditch-litter Say the kitchen’s a cow’s corpse. Say we never get to see it: bright future, stuck like a bum star, never coming close, never dazzling. Say we never meet her. Never him. Say we spend our last moments staring at each other, hands knotted together, clutching the dog, watching the sky burn. Say, It doesn’t matter. Say, That would be enough. Say you’d still want this: us alive, right here, feeling lucky.

Henry hooked his legs on the branch and flipped over gingerly, until he was hanging upside-down, grinning at Vlad. Then Henry's grin slipped. He fell to the ground several feet below with a thump, crying out as his body made impact. Vlad shimmied down the tree as fast as he could. "Henry ! Are you okay?" Henry sat up, clutching his wounded knee. He looked very much like he was going to start crying any second. A small, thin line of blood oozed from the scrape on his knee. Vlad's tiny fangs shot from his gums. Henry's eyes went wide, his injury all but forgotten. "What are those?" Vlad's small shoulders sank. He'd let his dad down. "They're my fangs." "Vlad, are you a vampire or something?" Henry's eyes were big, and Vlad was certain he saw fear in them. Not as much fear as when Henry had been falling from the tree, but close. He took a deep breath, glancing at the house. Then he sat down in front of Henry and said, "Yeah, Henry. I'm a vampire. But it's a secret. A very, very, very big secret and you can't tell anyone ever.

People who love you don’t tell you to get on with your life without them. People who love you don’t sleep with someone else when they should be with you.

Australia has some seven hundred varieties of eucalyptus trees and they have the most wonderfully expressive names—kakadu woolly butt, bastard tallowwood, gympie messmate, candlebark, ghost gum—

Howard had a pine display case, fastened by fake leather straps and stained to look like walnut. Inside, on fake velvet, were cheap gold-plated earrings and pendants of semiprecious stones. He opened this case for haggard country wives when their husbands were off chopping trees or reaping the back acres. He showed them the same half-dozen pieces every year the last time he came around, when he thought, This is the season - preserving done, woodpile high, north wind up and getting cold, night showing up earlier every day, dark and ice pressing down from the north, down on the raw wood of their cabins, on the rough-cut rafters that sag and sometimes snap from the weight of the dark and the ice, burying families in their sleep, the dark and the ice and sometimes the red in the sky through trees: the heartbreak of a cold sun. He thought, Buy the pendant, sneak it into your hand from the folds of your dress and let the low light of the fire lap at it late at night as you wait for the roof to give out or your will to snap and the ice to be too thick to chop through with the ax as you stand in your husband's boots on the frozen lake at midnight, the dry hack of the blade on ice so tiny under the wheeling and frozen stars, the soundproof lid of heaven, that your husband would never stir from his sleep in the cabin across the ice, would never hear and come running, half-frozen, in only his union suit, to save you from chopping a hole in the ice and sliding into it as if it were a blue vein, sliding down into the black, silty bottom of the lake, where you would see nothing, would perhaps feel only the stir of some somnolent fish in the murk as the plunge of you in your wool dress and the big boots disturbed it from its sluggish winter dreams of ancient seas. Maybe you would not even feel that, as you struggled in clothes that felt like cooling tar, and as you slowed, calmed, even, and opened your eyes and looked for a pulse of silver, an imbrication of scales, and as you closed your eyes again and felt their lids turn to slippery, ichthyic skin, the blood behind them suddenly cold, and as you found yourself not caring, wanting, finally, to rest, finally wanting nothing more than the sudden, new, simple hum threading between your eyes. The ice is far too thick to chop through. You will never do it. You could never do it. So buy the gold, warm it with your skin, slip it onto your lap when you are sitting by the fire and all you will otherwise have to look at is your splintery husband gumming chew or the craquelure of your own chapped hands.

Cedar The cedar tree smells like the first crisp bite of spearmint chewing gum, refreshing, yet almost like medicine in its bitter. This tree is surely as ancient as Ecclesiastes-- that's a book in the Old Testament that I haven't read much of, but it sounds like cedar smells. The scent of cedar holds a perpetual hush, whispering, "Hush-hush-still-stay." And then the cedar says, "Rush-rush-be-on-your-way, for I have seen children of earth come and go and soldiers live and die, and I hold them softly in my green-black shade." And so I will leave the cedar to return to its refrain and to remain the green a-men of the forest.

One of those awfully simple and beautiful days with you that makes me afraid of dying, makes me afraid of not being. When the soft 6 o’clock sun is slowly sinking behind the harbour, and your smile, effortless and tidy, makes time take flight. You save me from death but also from lifeless living. With you, nothing's wasted on me. The music of the breeze, the colours of children’s footsteps, the dancing trees—I drink them all and, what’s more, you drink these with me. One of those insignificant days when we do nothing and achieve nothing, and yet, chasing the ducks and sharing my last stick of gum with you is everything.

When they turned off, it was still early in the pink and green fields. The fumes of morning, sweet and bitter, sprang up where they walked. The insects ticked softly, their strength in reserve; butterflies chopped the air, going to the east, and the birds flew carelessly and sang by fits. They went down again and soon the smell of the river spread over the woods, cool and secret. Every step they took among the great walls of vines and among the passion-flowers started up a little life, a little flight. 'We’re walking along in the changing-time,' said Doc. 'Any day now the change will come. It’s going to turn from hot to cold, and we can kill the hog that’s ripe and have fresh meat to eat. Come one of these nights and we can wander down here and tree a nice possum. Old Jack Frost will be pinching things up. Old Mr. Winter will be standing in the door. Hickory tree there will be yellow. Sweet-gum red, hickory yellow, dogwood red, sycamore yellow.' He went along rapping the tree trunks with his knuckle. 'Magnolia and live-oak never die. Remember that. Persimmons will all get fit to eat, and the nuts will be dropping like rain all through the woods here. And run, little quail, run, for we’ll be after you too.' They went on and suddenly the woods opened upon light, and they had reached the river. Everyone stopped, but Doc talked on ahead as though nothing had happened. 'Only today,' he said, 'today, in October sun, it’s all gold—sky and tree and water. Everything just before it changes looks to be made of gold.' ("The Wide Net")

only children know God. Children see God every day; they just don’t call it that. It’s the summer sky painted with cumulus clouds by day and sequined with a million stars by night. It’s the sweet whispers of sweet gum trees and the sounds riding the tops of honeysuckle-scented breezes. Children feel God stuffed into brown fluffy dogs with stitches strong enough to withstand a good squeeze, and on the lips of round women who can’t get enough sugar from Chocolate.

What You Should Know to be a Poet" all you can know about animals as persons. the names of trees and flowers and weeds. the names of stars and the movements of planets and the moon. your own six senses, with a watchful elegant mind. at least one kind of traditional magic: divination, astrology, the book of changes, the tarot; dreams. the illusory demons and the illusory shining gods. kiss the ass of the devil and eat sh*t; fuck his horny barbed cock, fuck the hag, and all the celestial angels and maidens perfum’d and golden- & then love the human: wives husbands and friends children’s games, comic books, bubble-gum, the weirdness of television and advertising. work long, dry hours of dull work swallowed and accepted and lived with and finally lovd. exhaustion, hunger, rest. the wild freedom of the dance, extasy silent solitary illumination, entasy real danger. gambles and the edge of death.

We sat on the verandah drinking beer before we left, the hotel dark behind us. The moonlight was so strong we could see the grains of white sand glittering individually where it had been flung across the tarmac by the ox-wagon wheels. The heavy-hanging, pointed leaves of the gum-trees shone like tiny spears. I

An adhesive popular for a thousand years, gum arabic, comes from the acacia gum tree. The resin of trees of the genus Boswellia is a particularly nice-smelling glue called frankincense. Myrrh, another aromatic resin, comes from a thorny tree of the genus Commiphora. Resins were often used in medicines as well as in perfumes, perhaps because their active chemical components, like phenols, had potent antibacterial properties. Frankincense and myrrh were so highly valued in antiquity that they were given as presents to queens, kings, and emperors, which is why their presence in the Christian nativity story is so significant.

O shoe, leather ship that sails our cement rivers and woven seas, steering by the star of fashion, circumnavigating hostile reefs of tar and bubble gum; one hour, a tanker ferrying champagne to a playboy’s sip; the next, a raft in the slime; bon voyage, bright barge! May you dock in calm closets, safe from the rape of shoe trees.

In short, he felt himself to be in love in the right place, and was ready to endure a great deal of predominance, which, after all, a man could always put down when he liked. Sir James had no idea that he should ever like to put down the predominance of this handsome girl, in whose cleverness he delighted. Why not? A man's mind–what there is of it–has always the advantage of being masculine,–as the smallest birch-tree is of a higher kind than the most soaring palm,–and even his ignorance is of a sounder quality. Sir James might not have originated this estimate, but a kind Providence furnishes the limpest personality with a little gum or starch in the form of tradition.

It never occurred to me before, but there could have easily been a world with no buses, no horns honking, no red lights, no shopping carts, no gum stick to the bottom of benches downtown. For that matter I guess there also could have been no sun, no trees, and no ocean. None of those things had to exist, I guess. It makes me feel lucky that they do.

Hush little baby, don’t you cry, Mama’s gonna sing you a lullaby, and if that mockingbird don’t sing, Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring. Mama, Dada, uh-oh, ball. Good night tree, good night stars, good night moon, good night nobody. Potato stamps, paper chains, invisible ink, a cake shaped like a flower, a cake shaped like a horse, a cake shaped like a cake, inside voice, outside voice. If you see a bad dog, stand still as a tree. Conch shells, sea glass, high tide, undertow, ice cream, fireworks, watermelon seeds, swallowed gum, gum trees, shoes and ships and sealing wax, cabbages and kings, double dares, alphabet soup, A my name is Alice and my boyfriend’s name is Andy, we come from Alabama and we like apples, A my name is Alice and I want to play the game of looooove. Lightning bugs, falling stars, sea horses, goldfish, gerbils eat their young, please, no peanut butter, parental signature required, #1 Mom, show-and-tell, truth or dare, hide-and-seek, red light, green light, please put your own mask on before assisting, ashes, ashes, we all fall down, how to keep the home fires burning, date night, family night, night-night, May came home with a smooth round stone as small as the world and as big as alone. Stop, Drop, Roll. Salutations, Wilbur’s heart brimmed with happiness. Paper valentines, rubber cement, please be mine, chicken 100 ways, the sky is falling. Monopoly, Monopoly, Monopoly, you be the thimble, Mama, I’ll be the car.

Luna moths have no mouths or stomachs. They do not eat, and only live about one week. Where to Find It As soon as the female comes out of the cocoon in April or June, she searches for a tree with leaves her offspring can eat. Many different trees could be food for her caterpillars. So you may find her on walnut, hickory, oak, birch, alder, sweet gum or persimmon trees.

River red gum Meaning: Enchantment Eucalyptus camaldulensis | All states and territories Iconic Australian tree. Smooth bark sheds in long ribbons. Has a large, dense crown of leaves. Seeds require regular spring floods to survive. Flowers late spring to mid-summer. Has the ominous nickname 'widow maker', as it often drops large boughs (up to half the diameter of the trunk) without warning.

Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely, but too well; Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought, Perplex’d in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdu’d eyes, Albeit unusèd to the melting mood, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinal gum. Set you down this; And say besides,—that in Aleppo once, Where a malignant and a turban’d Turk Beat a Venetian and traduc’d the state, I took by the throat the circumcisèd dog And smote him—thus. [Stabs himself.]

Praise the light of late November, the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones. Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees; though they are clothed in night, they do not despair. Praise what little there’s left: the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls, shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory, the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky that hasn’t cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum, Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy fallen world; it’s all we have, and it’s never enough.

suppose it’s not odd, then, that I have trouble reconciling my life to those of my friends, or at least to their lives as I perceive them to be. Charles and Camilla are orphans (how I longed to be an orphan when I was a child!) reared by grandmothers and great-aunts in a house in Virginia: a childhood I like to think about, with horses and rivers and sweet-gum trees. And Francis. His mother, when she had him, was only seventeen—a thin-blooded, capricious girl with red hair and a rich daddy, who ran off with the drummer for Vance Vane and his Musical Swains. She was home in three weeks, and the marriage was annulled in six; and, as Francis is fond of saying, the grandparents brought them up like brother and sister, him and his mother, brought them up in such a magnanimous style that even the gossips were impressed—English nannies and private schools, summers in Switzerland, winters in France. Consider even bluff old Bunny, if you would. Not a childhood of reefer coats and dancing lessons, any more than mine was. But an American childhood. Son of a Clemson football star turned banker. Four brothers, no sisters, in a big noisy house in the suburbs, with sailboats and tennis rackets and golden retrievers; summers on Cape Cod, boarding schools near Boston and tailgate picnics during football season; an upbringing vitally present in Bunny in every respect, from the way he shook your hand to the way he told a joke.

At the sight of Ruth, singing and crying in the moonlight, they say Jacob Wyld crouched wordlessly and planted seeds at her feet, in the earth between the roots of the gum tree. What grew from that night, where Ruth's tears fell to the earth, was a heath of wild vanilla lilies, and an equally heady love affair between Ruth and Jacob. They met at the river whenever Ruth could get away. He brought her flower seeds and she brought him whatever meager food scraps she could sneak from the house. Soon Ruth had enough seeds to till a small, shaded corner of dirt near the house, where a nearly dead, lone wattle tree stood. The dirt was so dry it took her a month to soften it with whatever water she could carry from the river. Eventually, the wattle tree exploded into flower, a winter blaze of sweet yellow. Ruth fell to her knees at the sight. The scent floated all the way into town. Bees droned around the tree, drunk on its nectar. Beneath the wattle were circles of green shoots. Ruth sketched each one in her small notebook. As they bloomed, so different to the foxgloves and snowdrops of her mother's songs, Ruth noted down what they meant to her, adapting the Victorian language of flowers. The strange and beautiful native flowers, able to flourish in the harshest conditions, enchanted Ruth; none more so than the deep scarlet flowers with red centres the color of the darkest blood. Meaning, Ruth wrote in her notebook, have courage, take heart.

Moving on, while he wondered, the dark through which Mr. Lecky's light cut grew more beautiful with scents. Particles of solid matter so minute, gases so subtle, that they filtered through stopping and sealing, hung on the unstirred air. Drawn in with Mr. Lecky's breath came impalpable dews cooked out of disintegrating coal. Distilled, chemically split and reformed, they ended in flawless simulation of the aromas of gums, the scent of woods and the world's flowers. The chemists who made them could do more than that. Loose on the gloom were perfumes of flowers which might possibly have bloomed but never had, and the strong-smelling saps of trees either lost or not yet evolved. Mixed in the mucus of the pituitary membrane, these volatile essences meant more than synthetic chemistry to Mr. Lecky. Their microscopic slime coated the bushed-out ends of the olfactory nerve; their presence was signaled to the anterior of the brain's temporal lobe. At once, thought waited on them, tossing down from the great storehouse of old images, neglected ideas - sandalwood and roses, musk and lavender. Mr. Lecky stood still, wrung by pangs as insistent and unanswerable as hunger. He was prodded by the unrest of things desired, not had; the surfeit of things had, not desired. More than anything he could see, or words, or sounds, these odors made him stupidly aware of the past. Unable to remember it, whence he was, or where he had previously been, all that was sweet, impermanent and gone came back not spoiled by too much truth or exact memory. Volatile as the perfumes, the past stirred him with longing for what was not - the only beloved beauty which you will have to see but which you may not keep. Mr. Lecky's beam of light went through glass top and side of a counter, displayed bottles of colored liquid - straw, amber, topaz - threw shadows behind their diverse shapes. He had no use for perfume. All the distraction, all the sense of loss and implausible sweetness which he felt was in memory of women. Behind the counter, Mr. Lecky, curious, took out bottles, sniffed them, examined their elaborately varied forms - transparent squares, triangles, cones, flattened ovals. Some were opaque, jet or blue, rough with embedded metals in intricate design. This great and needless decoration of the flasks which contained it was one strange way to express the inexpressible. Another way was tried in the names put on the bottles. Here words ran the suggestive or symbolic gamut of idealized passion, or festive night, of desired caresses, or of abstractions of the painful allure yet farther fetched. Not even in the hopeful, miracle-raving fancy of those who used the perfumes could a bottle of liquid have any actual magic. Since the buyers at the counters must be human beings, nine of every ten were beyond this or other help. Women, young, but unlovely and unloved, women, whatever they had been, now at the end of it and ruined by years or thickened to caricature by fat, ought to be the ones called to mind by perfume. But they were not. Mr. Lecky held the bottle in his hand a long while, aware of the tenth woman.

And lifting water is just one of the many jobs that the phloem, xylem, and cambium perform. They also manufacture lignin and cellulose; regulate the storage and production of tannin, sap, gum, oils, and resins; dole out minerals and nutrients; convert starches into sugars for future growth (which is where maple syrup comes into the picture); and goodness knows what else. But because all this is happening in such a thin layer, it also leaves the tree terribly vulnerable to invasive organisms. To combat this, trees have formed elaborate defense mechanisms. The reason a rubber tree seeps latex when cut is that this is its way of saying to insects and other organisms, “Not tasty. Nothing here for you. Go away.” Trees can also deter destructive creatures like caterpillars by flooding their leaves with tannin, which makes the leaves less tasty and so inclines the caterpillars to look elsewhere. When infestations are particularly severe, some trees can even communicate the fact. Some species of oak release a chemical that tells other oaks in the vicinity that an attack is under way. In response, the neighboring oaks step up their tannin production the better to withstand the coming onslaught. By such means, of course, does nature tick along. The problem arises when a tree encounters an attacker for which evolution has left it unprepared, and seldom has a tree been more helpless against an invader than the American chestnut against Endothia parasitica. It enters a chestnut effortlessly, devours the cambium cells, and positions itself for attack on the next tree before the tree has the faintest idea,

Wheat did it by manipulating Homo sapiens to its advantage. This ape had been living a fairly comfortable life hunting and gathering until about 10,000 years ago, but then began to invest more and more effort in cultivating wheat. Within a couple of millennia, humans in many parts of the world were doing little from dawn to dusk other than taking care of wheat plants. It wasn’t easy. Wheat demanded a lot of them. Wheat didn’t like rocks and pebbles, so Sapiens broke their backs clearing fields. Wheat didn’t like sharing its space, water and nutrients with other plants, so men and women laboured long days weeding under the scorching sun. Wheat got sick, so Sapiens had to keep a watch out for worms and blight. Wheat was attacked by rabbits and locust swarms, so the farmers built fences and stood guard over the fields. Wheat was thirsty, so humans dug irrigation canals or lugged heavy buckets from the well to water it. Sapiens even collected animal faeces to nourish the ground in which wheat grew. The body of Homo sapiens had not evolved for such tasks. It was adapted to climbing apple trees and running after gazelles, not to clearing rocks and carrying water buckets. Human spines, knees, necks and arches paid the price. Studies of ancient skeletons indicate that the transition to agriculture brought about a plethora of ailments, such as slipped discs, arthritis and hernias. Moreover, the new agricultural tasks demanded so much time that people were forced to settle permanently next to their wheat fields. This completely changed their way of life. We did not domesticate wheat. It domesticated us. The word ‘domesticate’ comes from the Latin domus, which means ‘house’. Who’s the one living in a house? Not the wheat. It’s the Sapiens. How did wheat convince Homo sapiens to exchange a rather good life for a more miserable existence? What did it offer in return? It did not offer a better diet. Remember, humans are omnivorous apes who thrive on a wide variety of foods. Grains made up only a small fraction of the human diet before the Agricultural Revolution. A diet based on cereals is poor in minerals and vitamins, hard to digest, and really bad for your teeth and gums.

Cheer up!" said the big Blue-gum. But the Little Red House couldn't say a word. Presently the big Blue-gum groaned loudly. "Oo! Ah! Ah! Golly!" groaned the Blue-gum in a strange voice. "I beg your pardon? said the Little Red House. "Oh, I have a nasty sharp pain in my side," said the Blue-gum. "I do hope and trust it isn't white-ants. It would be simply horrible, if it were. Fancy getting white-ants at my time of life! Here I have lived on this mountain, tree and sapling, for over a hundred years; and to think those nasty, white, flabby little things should get me at last is horrible--horrible!" "I am sorry," said the Little Red House. "I'm afraid I've been very selfish, too. I was forgetting that everyone has troubles of his own; but I hope it isn't so bad as you fear." "It is bad enough," groaned the Blue-gum. "Ow! There it is again. I'm afraid it IS white-ants. I can feel the wretched little things nipping." But the Little Red House hardly heard him. He

Jenna had called me a robot, Mama thought I need a shrink, then Daddy got all proud because I’d made a fool of myself. I needed some aspirin.

As with most small town southerners, respectability was as much a part of my DNA as was my hair and eye color. It was the goal everyone strived for, the standard by which every citizen of Morganville was judged. And while my family, the Frenchs, weren’t the richest- that honor going to Ian and Helena Morgan- we were one of the most respected. Thanks mostly to the Judge, my grandfather. His name was Carl, but no one, including his daughters, had ever called him anything but Judge. He retired from the bench when I was five, and since my own father pulled a vanishing act shortly before my birth, the Judge stepped forward to fill that role for me. I thought the man walked on water and took every word from his lips as gospel. “Alix,” he told me. “Stay away from the railroad tracks. A wowzer cat lives under the trestle, and you don’t want to get tangled up with one of those.” “What’s a wowzer cat?” I asked, enthralled. “It’s a fifty pound cat with eight legs and nine bung holes, and it’s meaner than a gar.” The Judge had an odd sense of humor.

Mooney was the class bully, a boy who had already failed two grades by the time he landed in mine. He was fat, sweaty and loud, and all the kids were scared of him. With good reason. If Mooney wanted something he took it, and woe to the child who tried to stop him. But Mooney was also crafty and sly. He never retaliated when an adult was near, preferring to ambush his prey when he could catch them off-guard, knowing it would be his word against the victims if the kid were stupid enough to tell. Sitting next to him was torture. I always carried extra pencils because I knew Mooney would confiscate the one I was using. And I considered myself lucky that pencils were all he’d taken so far. At least, I was lucky until the week before our midterm tests. Because the weather was nasty that Monday, our recess was taken in the gym. I was sitting on the bleachers taking a breather, watching Jenna chase Hugh in a game of tag, when Mooney confronted me. “You’re gonna let me copy off your paper when we take our tests next week,” he said. “If you don’t, I’ll stomp you into the ground.” He swaggered off, secure in the thought that I’d comply with his demand. I watched him in shock. Cheat? He wanted me to cheat on the tests? The Judge would disown me. I would never be able to look my grandfather in the eye again. There was no way I could let Mooney copy, even knowing he would kill me when it was over. Death before dishonor was my family motto.

Boys? Megan’s mind was flooded with images of boys. Boys with missing teeth, their faces smeared with red Popsicle goo, their beady little eyes laughing at her as they lured her behind their house to see their new “puppy” and then lassoed her to a tree and hung her upside down. Greasy-haired, chubby-legged, evil little boys. Boys with worms in their pockets who ate gum off the ground and pulled her hair.

The boys will take a little while to adjust, but I’m sure you’ll all get along,” her mother said. Boys? Megan’s mind was flooded with images of boys. Boys with missing teeth, their faces smeared with red Popsicle goo, their beady little eyes laughing at her as they lured her behind their house to see their new “puppy” and then lassoed her to a tree and hung her upside down. Greasy-haired, chubby-legged, evil little boys. Boys with worms in their pockets who ate gum off the ground and pulled her hair. “How many of them were there again?” Megan asked as she lowered herself shakily onto the edge of the couch. Her mother and father pondered this. “Seven at last count, I believe,” her father said. “Quite a brood.” Yes. Quite, Megan thought.

But she did have a sulky bursting prowling sort of energy, because she was in that state so many young girls go through―a state of sexual obsession that can be like a sort of trance. When I was fifteen, still living in Baker Street with my father, I spent some months in that state, so that now I can't walk through that area without remembering, half amused, half embarrassed, an emotional condition which was so strong it had the power to absorb into it pavements, houses, shop windows. What was interesting about June was this: surely nature should have arranged matters so that the men she met must be aware of what afflicted her. Not at all. That first evening Maryrose and I involuntarily exchanged glances and nearly laughed out loud from recognition and amused pity. We did not, because we also understood that the so obvious fact was not obvious to the men and we wanted to protect her from their laughter. All the women in the place were aware of June. I remember sitting one morning on the verandah with Mrs. Lattimer, the pretty red-haired woman who flirted with young Stanley Lett, and June came into sight prowling blindly under the gum-trees by the railway lines. It was like watching a sleepwalker. She would take half a dozen steps, staring across the valley at the piled blue mountains, lift her hands to her hair, so that her body, tightly outlined in bright red cotton, showed every straining line and the sweat patches dark under the armpits―then drop her arms, her fists clenched at her sides. She would stand motionless, then walk on again, pause, seem to dream, kick at the cinders with the toe of high white sandal, and so on, slowly, till she was out of sight beyond the sun-glittering gum-trees. Mrs. Lattimore let out a deep rich sigh, laughed her weak indulgent laugh, and said: 'My God, I wouldn't be a girl again for a million pounds. My God, to go through all that again, not for a million million.' And Maryrose and I agreed. Yet, although to us every appearance of this girl was so powerfully embarrassing, the men did not see it and we took care not to betray her. There is a female chivalry, woman for woman, as strong as any other kind of loyalty. Or perhaps it was we didn't want brought home to us the deficiencies of imagination of our own men.

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Gretchen.

Talking works both ways, Alix.

Three days after their wedding they were standing at the base of Liffey Falls, at the brisk death of winter, watching an airborne river thrash its way earthward. The water tumbled through high ridges, crowded with the princes of the island's wetter wildernesses: blackheart sassafras, dappled leatherwoods, contortions of mossy myrtles. Giant stringybarks rose above them all, their gum-topped crowns fighting for space in the clouds. The forest loomed, wet-dark and thickly green in the morning dew, and through the ancient roots of its trees the Liffey ran and broke and fell to splash the boots of the gazing newlyweds. p.68

It is a very pretty observation of old Isaac Ambrose that the gum which exudes from the tree without cutting is always the best.

a Sleeping Beauty waiting for the awakening kiss of her prince.

There was no sound anywhere. No twitter of wakening birds in the gum trees, no bleat from the sandy paddocks, no low of far-off cattle. Silence - the frightful silence of Drought that has killed all life and now broods over the place aghast at her own handiwork.

What is the matter, my lord? Hamlet: Between who? Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord. Hamlet: Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams; all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down, for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward. Polonius: [Aside] Though this be madness, yet there is method in't Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 193–206

My teeth clatter in my mouth as everything ripples and shudders in the storm of shells, whining, whizzing. The kid on the bicycle rolls out of sight. Untouched. A miracle. A dream. The shells abruptly cease and there is only the settling creak of the car seat, a scatter of twittering birds in the shrubs and trees. I could use some gum. Where do you buy gum so early besides the service station? It seems wrong to go there since we don't need any gasoline. We don't drive enough. A tank of gas lasts us forever. I get behind the wheel and in the mirror I can see my eyelids fluttering. I sit squeezing the steering wheel until I realize I haven't started the engine. The garage conceals me. I don't want to go out into the open. A horse whinnys – are they bringing up the artillery? It's the farm field where old Wallam tills a little garden, his yard is the biggest and runs alongside the back of ours to the farm where his family has their orchards. What's wrong with me? Sounds of explosions, bullets, voices of men. Volleys. I smell smoke. Burning things, festering ruptured corpses with maggots pulsing under horrible skin and the shells, the horse, it's hit, it shrieks, explodes apart – can we pull the gun by hand? The crew is dead too, bullets are making their bodies jump even after they have broken apart like smashed holiday nuts. I want to scream. Maybe I am? I begin breathing rapidly. I don't know how long I am there but I hear the screen door open and I key the ignition. “Car troubles?” Mr. Kincaid calls out to me from the front porch. “No troubles,” I say setting my arm out the window and holding the mirror to keep my hand steady. “Lovely day.” The sun was really rising, taking the temperature up with it, hot shards of searing light coming over the treetops to stab at everything that couldn't find the shade. I couldn't find the shade.

Twiddling the end of her sun-bleached plait, Tess studied the bone-dry hills above the gum trees

Do it for me, Alix. I need to know you’ll be happy if I’m going to have any chance of getting through this. Promise me. Please.” “I promise you this. I’ll love you until the day I die even if I have to live without you. And if it’s fifty years from now, you come home, Nick Anderson. Do you hear me? I’ll be waiting on you.

March 23 MORNING “His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” — Luke 22:44 THE mental pressure arising from our Lord’s struggle with temptation, so forced his frame to an unnatural excitement, that his pores sent forth great drops of blood which fell down to the ground. This proves how tremendous must have been the weight of sin when it was able to crush the Saviour so that he distilled great drops of blood! This demonstrates the mighty power of his love. It is a very pretty observation of old Isaac Ambrose that the gum which exudes from the tree without cutting is always the best. This precious camphire-tree yielded most sweet spices when it was wounded under the knotty whips, and when it was pierced by the nails on the cross; but see, it giveth forth its best spice when there is no whip, no nail, no wound. This sets forth the voluntariness of Christ’s sufferings, since without a lance the blood flowed freely. No need to put on the leech, or apply the knife; it flows spontaneously. No need for the rulers to cry, “Spring up, O well;” of itself it flows in crimson torrents. If men suffer great pain of mind apparently the blood rushes to the heart. The cheeks are pale; a fainting fit comes on; the blood has gone inward as if to nourish the inner man while passing through its trial. But see our Saviour in His agony; He is so utterly oblivious of self, that instead of His agony driving His blood to the heart to nourish himself, it drives it outward to bedew the earth. The agony of Christ, inasmuch as it pours Him out upon the ground, pictures the fulness of the offering which He made for men. Do we not perceive how intense must have been the wrestling through which He passed, and will we not hear its voice to us? “Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” Behold the great Apostle and High Priest of our profession, and sweat even to blood rather than yield to the great tempter of your

Indulge me for a minute. This won’t take long. I want to use a scenario to set the stage for our discussion about parenting. For starters, I’ll need you to pull up a chair on one of the sides of this card table I’m looking at. You’ll notice that it is crowded with tiny pieces of an elaborate jigsaw puzzle. You can tell—just by looking at the colors and designs on the pieces—that this is going to be a bit of a challenge. Before you tear into this project, though, there are a few things you need to know about what you’re looking at: → The border pieces have all been removed. I know it’s easier to start a jigsaw puzzle by putting the edge pieces together to form a border. That gives you an early sense of accomplishment before you move on to the difficult stuff. Sorry. You’ll have to decide the boundaries of this puzzle for yourself. → Somebody threw a couple of handfuls of pieces from a different puzzle into the box. They may look like they belong to this one, but they don’t. They won’t fit no matter how hard you try. And because you don’t know which ones they are, you could waste a lot of time before you find out. Are you ready to start putting the puzzle together? I realize I’ve complicated matters for you, but you’re fairly resourceful. Given enough time and enough soothing medication, you could probably figure it out. All you need is the picture on the box cover and you can begin. Oh, I forgot to mention something: We lost the cover to the box. You’re just going to have to guess what this picture puzzle is supposed to look like. Does this sound like fun? I can’t speak for you, but I’d rather get my gums scraped. If anything, this puzzle project sounds more like a sick joke. It’s tough enough when you have all the right pieces, all the edge pieces, and the picture on the box. Take those things away, and it’s anybody’s guess what you’ll come up with. Not only that, but without a clear picture of what you are trying to put together, you’ll never really know if you even came close to what it was supposed to be.

press charges. Meanwhile see what Angela Sullivan has to say for herself, find the house and have it forensically examined—that’s if it’s still standing.’ Arrests would mean fingerprints, thought Auhl. Then they could run those prints against the prints on the gun. ‘Boss.’ OUTSIDE SULLIVAN’S HOUSE Auhl stretched the kinks in his spine. Too much charging around the countryside in a car. He followed Claire to the front door, pressed the bell. Nothing. Pounded his fist. Nothing. ‘Let’s try around the back.’ The side path took them to a typical suburban yard: small garden beds, flowers, shrubs and a vegetable plot, all showing some semblance of design—rock borders painted white, a wooden garden seat artfully angled beneath a small gum tree, a wheelbarrow doubling as a flowerpot. Neat, but in an ongoing

New Boys in the Bush.

We stood that way for the length of time it took for the sun to settle beyond the ocean horizon and for twilight to cast shadows from the mango tree outside the window. Aden, using is body language to ask for forgiveness; and me saying yes with mine. Only, my body was split like the fallen ghost gum, and I didn't know how I was going to escape the mess I'd made.

I'm already opening my eyes as the sparrows bring me to life from beneath the sweet gum tree, their simple tune accompanied by migrating songbirds of every vibrant hue. Scarlet tanagers, prothonotary warblers, and my personal favorite, the indigo buntings who have returned with their striking blue feathers and silvery bills. The trees are alive, and they sing to tell us so.

Yet there was beauty everywhere and we were lonely on the river. The forest was dark and deep with shadows where cypress trees were festooned with veils of Spanish moss. Water oak, hickory, tupelo gum, and many other trees clustered the banks, and hummingbirds danced above the water, opalescent feathers catching the light as if they played with their own beauty.

After the smeared chewing gum and general stink of the rest of the city—its incessant, insistent noise—stepping into the tangled, tree-lined streets of this old and monied part of the island felt like a magic trick. Or like crossing the border into a fairyland full of cruel creatures you would never understand, amongst whom you did not belong.

That evening I drove down the bayou to attend a meeting of our church-annex committee. The back road to Jeanerette is like a geographical odyssey through Louisiana’s history and the disparities that make it less than real and difficult to categorize. The pastureland is emerald green in spring and summer, dotted with cattle and clumps of oak and gum trees, the early sugar cane waving in the richest alluvial soil in America. At sunset, Bayou Teche is high and dark from the spring rains; the air smells of gardenia and magnolia; and antebellum homes glow among the trees with a soft electrical whiteness that makes one wonder if perhaps the Confederacy should not have won the War Between the States after all.