Wish well the life

You may have wondered about our web address. It's from a poem by the American novelist, poet and environmentalist, Wendell Berry. They say that the far-sighted plant trees, as you may not live to see them reach maturity. With climate change, it's even more important that we should plant as many as possible.

Planting Trees, by Wendell Berry

In the mating of trees,

the pollen grain entering invisible

the domed room of the winds, survives

the ghost of the old forest

that stood here when we came.  The ground

invites it, and it will not be gone.

I become the familiar of that ghost

and its ally, carrying in a bucket

twenty trees smaller than weeds,

and I plant them along the way

of the departure of the ancient host.

I return to the ground its original music.

It will rise out of the horizon

of the grass, and over the heads

of the weeds, and it will rise over

the horizon of men’s heads.  As I age

in the world it will rise and spread,

and be for this place horizon

and orison, the voice of its winds.

I have made myself a dream to dream

of its rising, that has gentled my nights.

Let me desire and wish well the life

these trees may live when I

no longer rise in the mornings

to be pleased by the green of them

shining, and their shadow on the ground,

and the sound of the wind in them.

The Elmsett elms