TREES

So much that surrounds us points to the dissolution of our society, to the end of Western Civilization as it had been known, and to the cruel brutality of the world.   These avatars of our destruction are conspicuously on display in the nature of our popular culture, in films, in print, (if anyone still reads) and in music.   But for me, nowhere is this devastation more powerfully and clearly observed than in an examination of what we teach our children, or more specifically, what we no longer teach our children.  

We no longer teach our young to value their own past, or to at least have a passing knowledge of that which created the world in which they are to live and prosper.  Indeed, just the opposite seems to be true: what was once perceived as deviant or anti-social behavior is now celebrated with great joy, it seems, and those works, objects of art, poems, or literature once held as "classics," are mocked or worst, ignored completely. What is deemed "cool" is treasured over the profound and laudatory.   "Relevance" has rendered true greatness irrelevant.  Tradition has been replaced by fashion in most all subject areas;  it is fashion that determines what is to be held in high esteem, what is valued, bought and sold.    Our approach to the world, how we see it has become immature and valueless.  

When I was a boy it was part of just about every school's curriculum to learn the poem (and song) "Trees," by Joyce Kilmer.    So popular was this poem that it showed up in films, in cartoons; it was quoted and paraphrased, even parodied, in every media.   That could be done only because everyone knew it.   We can no longer say that.   We haven't been able to say that for many, many years.

But why this particular poem?   Why should this poem be held in such high esteem that it should be taught to our young in schools around the country, universally accepted by educators as the sine qua non for the complete education of youth, for so many years?   I challenge you to think on this.  I challenge you to find the reasons that this poem should be so treasured.   Then, I challenge you to teach it to a young person.   

TREES

by Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see, 

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

And if you don't "get it," that makes me sad.