Raintree - the Graceful Acacia

 Raintree - the Graceful Acacia (Samanea saman)

"Lying under an acacia tree with the sound of the dawn around me, I realized more clearly the facts that man should never overlook: that the construction of an airplane, for instance, is simple when compared [with] a bird; that airplanes depend on an advanced civilization, and that were civilization is most advanced, few birds exist. I realized that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes." - Charles Lindbergh

        Acacia Tree - a Miniature Ecosystem 

Closeup of the crown of an acacia tree revealing rich biodiversity and homeostasis (dynamic balance), painting in acrylic by AV Rotor 2025

 “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein

Part 1 - Where have all our heritage acacia trees gone?

Photographs taken by the author on a running car all the way from Vigan to Laoag,  a stretch of 90 kilometers.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Empty landscape meets the traveler

Emptiness is simplicity, purity, peace and order.

No.  Nothing exists in nothing - or least,

 emptiness denies happiness and meaning of life;

leading many to solitude and loneliness.

                                    - A. V. Rotor

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." ― William Shakespeare

"Love is like a tree, it grows of its own accord, it puts down deep roots into our whole being." ― Victor Hugo

 

A Cross on the Roadside

(A Cross in the Sky*)

Dr Abe V Rotor

I have lost you forever,

Now a silhouette in the sky,

Spreading a gospel to remember,

For the mindless passerby.

You live half of your life,

Yet fullest at the Throne,

Earning it well with strife,

Where every seed is sown.

The birds now a flock,

The child a man;

You bid them all the luck,

And now they are gone.

In youth you sheltered me,

A thought I can't be free,

I atone for your brevity,

With a thousand and one tree.

"I feel a great regard for trees; they represent age and beauty and the miracles of life and growth." ― Louise Dickinson Rich

 

The Highway Conquers All

The highway conquers all:

Trees on its shoulder, lawn between lanes;

in rich diversity now thinned out;

wildlife pedestrians crossing;

breeze swept into cyclone and dust;

bright, pure colors into kaleidoscope,

landscapes into haze and maze;

whisper and lull into sudden boom;

leaves fall in any season;

Give way to the king of the road;

now you see him, now you don't -

the Janus' god of the Good Life.

- A,V, Rotor

 

"All our wisdom is stored in the trees." ― Santosh Kalwar

"On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree." ― W.S. Merwin 

 

"I think I shall finally see,

A kind-hearted man plant a tree,

For he who truly loves thee

Shall love others through a tree."

- A V Rotor, Light in the Woods

  “Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature.” – Gerard De Nerval

 

"Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking." ― Wangari Maathai

 

"When trees burn, they leave the smell of heartbreak in the air." ― Jodi Thomas

 

"Trees are as close to immortality as the rest of us ever come." ― Karen Joy Fowler

 

"Trees do not preach learning and precepts. They preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life." ― Herman Hesse

"Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky." ― Kahlil Gebran

 

 “Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”   John Muir

“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.” – E. O. Wilson

                            * Reprint from Light in the Woods by Dr A.V. Rotor 1995

Part 2 - Trees for Peace 

Symbiosis of Drynaria Fern and Acacia Tree - More than Commensalism

Dr Abe V Rotor

Drynaria fern covers the limbs of an acacia tree. Tagudin, Ilocos Sur

Photo by the author.

I like the Drynaria

I like Drynaria for her feathery foliage in the distance like the proud peacock and the turkey trotting to win favors of their flock;

I like Drynaria for her sturdiness in the wind, cooling the summer air and keeping the coolness of the Amihan in December;

I like Drynaria for her resiliency, bending with the limbs and branches, turning upside down and up again the next season;

I like Drynaria for sleeping through the dry months while her host takes the show, verdant green, robust and free;

I like Drynaria for resurrecting from a state of torpor, as if she defies death and perpetuates life while others simply die;

I like Drynaria for her economy in sustenance, living on captured dirt and rain, yet discreet of such austere living;

I like Drynaria for touching the clouds with her host taming it to fall as rain and shared by all creatures around;

I like Drynaria for her ability to multiply fast through invisible spores, in one sweep of the wind are sown in far places;

I like Drynaria for its benevolence to many creatures, tenant and transient, keeping their brood in her bosom;

I like Drynaria giving the martines birds a home, where it sings in joy and praise and thanksgiving for a beautiful world;

I like Drynaria for keeping company to passersby, to tired souls in the shadow with her host, in dark and unlikely hours;

I like Drynaria for giving off oxygen and taking in carbon that poisons the earth and living things, among them no less than I;

I like Drynaria, for caring its host and vice versa through symbiosis - a perfect bond that humans have yet to learn someday. ~

Martines birds, long thought to be extinct locally, find shelter

                             and home with the Drynaria, and the host acacia tree. 

                                                    Photo by the author.