January 12 2006, 02:06 PM Two Stories About Wood

In the backyard of the memory of my childhood, there are two giant, lofty silver maples, arms spread to the sky. In summer they blot the sun, in winter cast stern admonition to the clouds. They are handy for holding up the ends of a rope hammock, to swing gently in the dappled light that trips down through the shifting leaves.

The actual trees are gone, now. It is part of the nature of the silver maple to be fickle with health as it ages; the limbs rot from inside, betraying no sign, until a large piece of tree puts a hole in something. It was time for the trees to go, and the backyard of my memory is now only that.

The actual backyard now has the problem of being something of a communal drainage depression for the neighborhood. One of the features of trees is to absorb vast amounts of ground water and fling it into the sky; I know this to be true - in their absence, the trees have the last laugh. The backyard of my memory was never so swampy.

A while ago, Mr. Containment and I happened upon a discarded, seasoned limb of one of the local ginkgo trees, lightly weathered and stripped of leaf. Mr. Containment took some pleasure in this, for that was a piece of ginkgo wood that would never again foul his car with fruit. I took the limb home.

One of the over winter projects has been to pare down the limb into a walking stick. A whip saw took care of the small stubs, and a procession of sandpapers brought the wood down to a soft, powdery shine. It took three coats of linseed oil, and smells gently of older times.

At the head end of the stick, the trimmings left the rough shape of a face, better brought out by the darkening of the wood by the oil. It is off center and howling, mouth agape. It rages with eyes open, it sings loud songs.

Or not.