Plants and Civilization

My winter term class is going to be fabulously entertaining and enlightening.  The book I'm reading right now (Botany of Desire) is a fun read and I'm so excited to see what this mini-semester brings.  

For a brief moment in class my professor talked about Joyce Kilmer and his poem, Tree.  So, I looked it up (because, despite being a famous poem, yours truly had never come across it).  Here it is:

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Also noteworthy, my professor gave us a brief history about himself.  One of his power point lecture slides was titled "Who am I?" and upon clicking the space bar of his laptop, a picture of him as a teen zoomed onto the screen.  It said "Rattlesnake-Killer".  From there, he became a "Bored-Banker" and is now a present and self-identified "Tree-Hugger".  Let me just say that once you see an old photograph of your teacher holding a dead rattlesnake from the estimated seventies, you can't help but warm yourself to his/her friendship and, in my context, to their knowledge on plants and civilization.

Today's class ended with our group of students walking outside into the frigid cold, led by professor, to a pine tree where we heard some rem(b)arkable history about North Carolina's state tree.

Now I'm off to acquire transportation to buy a kazoo.

Love,

Monica