Trees Represent The Strength of This World

 

Trees represent the strength of this world. Scientists say that we breathe because of them. They according to modern science exhale oxygen while we humans exhale carbon dioxide. The trees and humanity therefore keep each other alive. Perhaps that is our fate. Not only on this planet but wherever we travel throughout the universe. Humanity needs plants for food housing clothing and shelter. The cotton ball is known as well as the corncob. The lumber from the oak tree is as well accepted as the seeds of the peanut and the beans of the soybean. We need clothing. We need the cotton and the flax seed. While leather does not come from trees . It is derived from and animal that consumes a large amount of grass.  We have been searching for newer synthetic plants. These plants we hope will provide use with more substance. We have a variety of corn , potatoes and fruit ,every one of these agricultural products are plants that come from soil. Even science fiction has shown us the desperate need for plants. The Martian , novel about an astronaut who has a prolonged stay on Mars learns to live off potatoes in the Martian red soil. The potatoes are far from Idaho potatoes, but he learns to digest the smaller blacker relations and they keep them both alive. In Interstellar, humanity’s knowledge of time and space are enhanced to enable him to solve the world hunger and land destruction problems. We are taught not to harm the planets plant life in the movies Io and 2067. In Io, the atmosphere turns into an inhospitable one for humanity. People leave the planet in desperation as the plant change from green to purple  and the world slowly kills off the mammalian life upon the world. The woman is forced to change . She must readapt for her betrothed is no longer willing to wait for her on Io. She has overstayed her time on earth. She has turned purple like the plants and she and the relationship is dying. She like the plants cannot adapt. Even after she gives herself up to interracial marriage, she cannot face the fact that it is possible to love a black man. This is more than a temporary object. She cannot and will not leave the earth. She will not give up to her new lover and chooses to end her life as if she were a plant rooted in the soil.  She snuffs out her life and fills her lungs with the strange gas that will only allow the burning of a purple flame.

            In  2067, humanity has sunk into the morass of climate change and the death of a planet by asphyxiation.  The planet is running out of oxygen. It is running out of hope . A man uses his son by giving him a tracking device that permanently attaches to his arm. It is a trap . The boy sticks his hand into to the box and the bracelet is attached. He cries in pain as the father flees the house after performing the dastardly deed. Humanity is trapped the same way. It is lured into a world of high finance and wealth only to find itself trapped without sufficient oxygen to breathe. He is promised a chance no once else is given . It is a chance given to him and only him to visit a new world and save the old. He must find the courage to build a new world. This world must rid itself of capitalism and false security. It must leave the gun behind, or it will fill the skulls of the masses with bullets.

            We are in the process of learning about the importance of the tree. It is more than something Weyerhaeuser and Georgia Pacific can offer us. It is more than the countless vessels made and designed to transport African men and women during the slave trade. It is more than a place to dispose of the bodies of African men and women. Trees are much more important than a hanging. It is too beautiful a thing to use as an execution block. Humanity has failed when such a beautiful plant is utilized for such an evil purpose. However, we must look at the tree for its practical purpose. The warships built. The battles won because of it. The men and women employed because of the trade fostered by it. This is important . As important as the issue of colonialism, racism and capitalism itself. It is an issue as important as breathing itself. It would lead us to the world we have today. It will probably lead us to the world of the future. If there is any hope for the liberation of humanity the tree will be apart of it.

            As a firm believer in Pan Africanism and socialism people must love trees. No one has the right to leave any continent barren and unforested . The trees are the soul of every continent , especially Africa.  For without trees Africa is not Africa. Without trees we can never hope to erase the borders made by humanity. We need them as badly as we need the rivers and streams that provide us with oxygen. They hold the soil in place so that we can live our daily lives without  the threat of mudslides and floods. They are more than shade, but we take things for granted. We remember barely the herds of buffalo that use to roam across this land. We elect men who do not believe in climate change and who still believe in misogyny and the use of the N- word whenever it pleases them.

            We must restore the planet. Not because of nostalgia but because we need a place to live. We need clean air to breathe. We need shelter . We need clothing and medicine or have we forgotten the blessings of the willow tree bark.

            What I decided to do was to study the trees. Mind you I am not a botanist nor a horticulturalist. About the closest I have ever come to being this was the few classes I had at Walter Biddle Saul Agricultural High School. I remember taking the Horticultural course. It was difficult. I did not do as well as I thought I could. Flowers and growing them is a difficult science. It came to me that wood and paper are important products of a tree. Major corporations have made fortunes selling the commodities derived from trees. I began to look at the importance of the entity we take so much for granted. The thing that rises from the ground and takes so long to grow. The growth of trees and the many human lifetimes it takes for a tree to reach maturation. I looked around the Philadelphia area  to find the specimens  that i knew and grew up with. I would use what little knowledge I could gleam from books and journals about them. I would merge this knowledge with my childhood experience of them. How many I had dared to climb. How close I came to losing my life by falling. For so odd reason I never fell. Perhaps there is a good in each tree that protects children when they climb them. I looked up the Maple and Sycamore the trees I remember from my neighborhood. I attempted to know them by using my poetic skills to communicate their beauty and their power.