\nwhen the fallen epileptic maple
\nshuddered in pain
\nby the road.
\nMy world died then
\nwith the maple\u2019s first convulsion.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
![\"colin08\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/colin08.jpg\" "\\"colin08\\"")
The world-class author of these lines was brilliant, funny Leonardas Andriekus (1914-2004), the former poet laureate of Lithuania known to generations of Kennebunkers as Father Leonard, a man who regularly lit up the Franciscan Monastery with his incandescent personality.<\/p>\n
Beautiful as these words are, is he suggesting there\u2019s something duplicitous about a deciduous tree? Sure they have their short-run, off-Broadway show for a few weekends. But what are we supposed to do after all the bright leaves disappear? With winter ahead, how can we recover after these extraordinary \u201cseizures\u201d of color?<\/p>\n
The answer, I think, lies in a darker flower still. The more I see the flashes of fall come and go, the more I find myself swept away by a deepening love for the steadfast pine trees that were here long before Hawthorne, after spending part of his childhood along Sebago Lake, first tried to describe what it\u2019s like to draw breath in this part of the woods.<\/p>\n
The flaring oranges and reds of foliage trees that are the stuff of Photoshopped calendars achieve their true drama only because of the dark green backdrop behind them. They\u2019re like flashy street buskers performing in front of crowds headed for the real symphony, Maine\u2019s evergreens.<\/p>\n
\u201cJames Phinney Baxter wrote about a white pine tree in Eastern Cemetery,\u201d says Portland city arborist Jeff Tarling. \u201cI\u2019d seen the poem, but when I went to find the tree, there was just a vacant space and a plaque where the pine tree was. So we planted another one there. It\u2019s about 15 feet tall.\u201d Another lovely Portland pine \u201cwas lost during the Patriots Day Storm, right on the Presumpscot shoreline, near Martin\u2019s Point,\u201d Tarling says. \u201cIt was really striking, with a windswept look. A commuter from Bailey Island mourned it. He kept calling me about it, actually pining away. We\u2019ve lost our pine tree. He said it was his favorite tree and wanted it recognized.\u201d<\/p>\n
I remember my father showing me trees in the Maine woods. Far from stopping at a spangled maple or birch, he took me right up a needle-covered path to a white pine tree, so tall the tip of its enormous green head disappeared in a cloud. I inhaled the fragrance of its rich sap (the first of many rich saps I would meet in my life) and wondered how many rings it had to make it so tall. \u201cFrom these, the masts of great ships were made,\u201d he told me as the pines whispered in the wind. Then he opened his hand to show five fingers. \u201cDo you see how the clumps of needles come in groups of five? This is a white pine.\u201d<\/p>\n
I guess I don\u2019t have to tell you, I\u2019ve visited this very pine tree during moments of joy and even doubt in my life to make sure it\u2019s still there.<\/p>\n
One definition of evergreen I love is, \u201ca plant having foliage that persists and remains green throughout the year.\u201d Yeah, that\u2019s Maine. Come on, winter. Bring it. As long as I\u2019ve got these evergreens covering me.<\/p>\n
When it\u2019s snowing, when I\u2019m driving along the Maine Turnpike and see these conifers appear out of the fog, out of the rain or snow, I feel their dark green loveliness, their wildness, their strength. If you listen very hard, you can hear their music.<\/p>\n
![\"Colin](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Colin-Signature-300x142.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
October 2009 \u201cI remember that autumn when the fallen epileptic maple shuddered in pain by the road. My world died then with the maple\u2019s first convulsion.\u201d The world-class author of these lines was brilliant, funny Leonardas Andriekus (1914-2004), the former poet laureate of Lithuania known to generations of Kennebunkers as Father Leonard, a man who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[62],"class_list":["post-1105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editor","tag-october-2009"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1105"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14521,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions\/14521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}