BY LESLIE REGO
Henry Thoreau, an American naturalist who lived from 1817 to 1862, loved trees. Thoreau would take long walks to observe their color and texture. He would study the attitude and posture of the tree trunks. He measured and sketched them. Thoreau searched for the tree’s character, for the tree’s innermost being. Thoreau contemplated every aspect of a tree: roots, bark, trunk, branches and twigs, leaves, cone, and blossoms.
Thoreau was friends with individual trees and would often set out to visit one or two particular ones. In winter, he would trudge through knee-high snow. Thoreau wrote in Walden that he wanted “to keep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.”
Much like Thoreau, I like to tromp through the snow (which is now thigh-high) to confirm that my beloved trees are still standing, hearty and noble, enduring the ice and bitter cold. In the winter I can visit just a few of my favorite trees, the ones that are easily accessible, but I still enjoy making the journey to put my heart at ease.
Thoreau was constantly amazed by the tiniest differences from one tree to another. He wrote, “A tree seen against other trees is a mere dark mass but against the sky it has parts, symmetry and expression.” Thoreau was fascinated by the stance and outlines of trees, comparing them to “designs and ciphers” in heraldry.
Often, I come across a tree and wonder, “How does it survive?” The tree is alone on the side of a slope or the top of the mountain. The wind must be fierce. Throughout the winter, the snow piles high, covering a good portion of the trunk and lying heavily along the boughs. And yet the tree perseveres and, in many cases, thrives. The lumps and clumps of snow that cover the branches appear like a special form of heraldry. They take on the shape of armorial bearings. I imagine that it is these heraldic shapes that become the tree’s protector during the endless winter months.
Leslie Rego is an Idaho Press Club award-winning columnist, artist and Blaine County resident. To view more of Rego’s art, visit leslierego.com.