Category Archives: Trees

07/25/12

Ode to Angel Oak

Angel Oak, John's Island

Angel Oak

I, Susan DeTomi, wrote the haiku that follows, relating my infatuation with a tree—yes, a tree—a Southern Live Oak, specifically referred to as the Angel Oak located in Johns Island, South Carolina.

The Southern Live Oak is a magnificent tree with curving branches that reach out in every direction and then arch up again toward the sky, and the Angel Oak is the granddaddy of them all.  Measuring 65 feet tall with limbs stretching out to 180 feet at their widest point, tip-to-tip (according to Wikipedia), the Angel Oak has been around for 300 to 400 years and has quite a following. Each time I visit the tree, I witness the awe and admiration surrounding it. Visitors from all over the world are snapping pictures and can often be seen hugging the tree, hoping to absorb some of its strong life force.

And so I wrote this haiku, a sort of ode to the Angel Oak, untitled, which speaks for itself:

 

10/10/11

The Boneyard

Botany Bay Boneyard

The Boneyard

The Boneyard seems like a befitting theme as Halloween approaches, yet the boneyard captured in this picture doesn’t quite match the one that comes to mind, the image of a graveyard, scattered with headstones tended by splintered black trees, stabbing their craggy limbs into the steel gray sky. This graveyard belongs to Mother Nature—a graveyard of trees slowly being reclaimed by the sea—trees that are now just remnants of what they once were. This place possesses a haunting beauty, a dichotomy of life and death that transcends elements of nature into the supernatural.

Despite the outward forces of destruction, life is teeming in and around the boneyard at Botany Bay Plantation: surf continues to batter the shoreline, pelicans fly in symmetrical formations overhead, and the sun shines so brightly you can scarcely steal a glance at the Carolina sky. The sculptural tree relics of the boneyard contrast starkly against the life-giving blues of the sky, and, still, this place of turbulence is much more than a ghostly apparition. A diverse wildlife population flourishes nearby, including endangered species such as Loggerhead Sea Turtles, Wilson’s Plovers, and Least Terns. After spotting one of the rare Painted Buntings that inhabit this coastal area, I am reminded once again that life goes on.