dreaminginthedeepsouth:coltonwbrown:November, 1938Mildred Bryant Brooks * * * *My 103-year-old house
dreaminginthedeepsouth:coltonwbrown:November, 1938Mildred Bryant Brooks * * * *My 103-year-old house is surrounded by great trees. I have named each one of them. There is Guarding Elm that leans and tosses to the west, just beyond the blue gate. Tiny Offshoot of the Great Wahpeton Maple grows alongside, only six feet tall. It is still shaped like a drumstick. I grew it from a seedling that took root in one of my mother’s flowerpots. Awkward and Shy are the elms that flank these two trees and Old Stalwart, biggest tree in the neighborhood, stands guard around the corner, in front of the house. Pensive Lover and Serene Darling, Haywire and Entire Trust are the locust trees that have sprung up in a ragged line along the edge of the yard. I have great admiration for these trees as they seem unkillable and their fronds of tossing leaves provide an ever shifting and trembling pattern of shadows on the old cream-colored walls inside our house. Also, they leaf out last of all and lose their leaves last, too, every fall, providing one final bank of burnished glory before the blastoff into winter.Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country: Traveling Through the Land of My Ancestorsby Louise Erdrich[Alive On All Channels] -- source link