David K. Leff, Essayist, Poet, Lecturer

Paintbrush and Rifle (poem)

Lowering binoculars, I look down
at my Audubon field guide and confirm
the sighting—a golden-crowned kinglet
high in a shaggy Norway spruce.
Gazing again through the lenses,
I imagine John James Audubon peering
along the site of his Long Tom rifle.

Silencing birds with bullets,
he made them immortal in luminous
brushstrokes, posing them so lifelike
with wires they seem to dance,
colors so vivid the images sing
loudly in whistles, trills, liquid
warbles, and harsh corvid cries.

Brand name for protecting birds,
mammals, reptiles and fish, swamps,
grasslands and mountainsides,
he taught us to see a wonderstruck
utility in beauty and forget the blood-
stained paints, the killing that saved,
enabling us to repent in his name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audubon, painted by John Syme, 1826

Tree Messages

        These trees shall be my books and in their barks my thoughts.
                Shakespeare, As You Like It

Why do some people carve messages and images into trees? Do words and sketches on a living thing enliven the thought, give it vibrancy lacking on other surfaces? Perhaps drawing on sylvan skin shares in the mystique of tattoos.

Gouging the bark of a tree is a form of vandalism I don’t condone. Whether conifer or hardwood, it leaves its victims vulnerable to insects and disease. Why would anyone endanger a lifeform that puts oxygen into the air merely to post a message? Trees may be usefully cut for house framing, furniture, and fuel, but to incise the bark just to mark one’s presence seems an unnecessary imposition of ego, at best. Nevertheless, some tree carvings intrigue me with synergies that connect natural objects and human expression.

Everyone’s seen carving on the smooth, smoke-gray bark of beech trees. Call them social register trees, they often bear names, dates, initials, hearts, and other designs. Analogous in some ways to canine-like behavior, apparently there are people who can’t help but mark their territory with knifepoints on bark. To those who admire the vigor and quirky growth habits of trees as an antidote to the regularity and endless written messages of the built environment, carvings seem self-defeating. A tree trunk is not meant to be a postcard.