Kelly Vargas ENGL 340-2 Fall 2013 Professor Ramey Patch# 2

My Young Pine, My Majestic Pine

Pine trees are beautiful to me because I love how most have green to bluishgreen needles. Pine trees release a fragrance that is delicately crisp, fresh, clean, and earthy which is calming compared to the smell of Pinesol. The sight and/or the smell of pine trees naturally reminds me of Christmas, but now and then I am taken back to a single special event from my childhood in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where I was born and lived until the end of third grade. I was seven and in the Girl Scouts. The troop, also my friends, took a trip to plant pine tree seedlings. At the time I did not understand the importance of what we were doing. I just remember being content to dig in the dirt with my friends. I had no idea what type of pine tree it was. Of the number of various species there are, I assume we planted a native species, one that would be fit to survive the terrain. According to the website for the Urban Forest Ecosystems Institute at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, the Pinus palustris, the Longleaf Pine, is a common species found in the southeastern United States, including North Carolina. The site also has a couple of photographs one of which shows the trees long thin dark green needles and green pine cones that become large and brown. I imagine my itsy-bitsy seedling was a Longleaf Pine that had a good chance of survival. If I were to go back to North Carolina and visit the place we planted our seedlings I envision finding them not so little anymore, that it would be a tall living monument representing my mark on the environment. I would smile at its grand stature and healthy branches with needles and cones. I would give a sigh of relief that no apartment

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buildings, shopping centers, or freeways stand in its place. I imagine a slice from the trunk will show numerous inner rings representing many years of perpetual growth. My happy vision of my majestic pine is in contrast to Tony Hoaglands poem History of Desire where the speaker Ron goes back to his hometown and could not avoid seeing his mark on the water tower, the large neon words he planted there at 17 years of age that read: RON LOVES DORIS (22). Although Ron is older when he returns home, he bumps into evidence of his youthful desires and how they drove him to actions he regrets (18). When Ron said, if desire is acceleration he is instructing the listener that he let his desires propel him quickly to steal his dads car and spray paint the water tower before rational thought could sink in and stop him (5-6. 8-9. 35). My mark on the environment was not an impulsive urge like Rons. However, I can relate to lines 36-38 that experience is circular as any Indianapolis. We keep coming back to what we are each time older. Every time I think back on my memory of planting the seedling I am older each time whether it be days, weeks, months, or years in between. I hope what was once my tiny young pine tree is now earths grand pine tree, where it continues to thrive, where it synthesizes carbon dioxide into oxygen and reproduces with its large brown pine cones. I hope it is tall and magnificent along with the other pine trees we planted those 28 years ago. I will always bump into reminders of my youth similar to the way lines 25-26 read, by holding still until you bump into yourself. Now and then I sit and reflect on the changes I have undergone over the years, which is why I like how Ron ends the poem by telling us to stop (41). This can have many different interpretations. I think it implies the need to stop and assess who

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we are, where are we heading, and how have we arrived at who and where we are now. I believe my journey to the person I am today was not a circular experience like that of a race track where I would essentially have gone nowhere. It would be tragic to go around in circles, never venturing outside of my comfort zone, or change course if I am unhappy with the direction I am heading towards. I feel strongly that my journey has taken a unique path unlike anyone else. For example, my DNA is uniquely different from everyone else although closely similar to my parents as explained in Jon Turneys Darwin Now which discusses Darwins Theory of Inheritance, Variation, and Selection (12-13). I can bump into the shadow of my old self as long as I have grown from my experiences and can keep the old me in the right perspective. I look back at my memory of planting the tree and think about doing it again. Maybe I can plant more seedlings or maybe I can plant the desire to obtain higher education or at least encourage others to keep going even when it is tough. I know I have taken more from this earth than I have given to it. I wonder at all the possible things I can do now that I am older, wiser, and more educated than before. I know there is a vast amount of knowledge waiting for me to dig into it, take it, and of course share it.

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Works Cited Hoagland, Tony. "History of Desire." Literature, a Portable Anthology. Third ed. Boston, NY: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. 678-79. Print. Turney, Jon. Darwin Now. Manchester: British Council, 2009. Print. Urban Forest Ecosystems Institute. "SelecTree - Tree Detail Record." UFEI. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2013. <http://selectree.calpoly.edu/treedetail.lasso?rid=1061>.