Dear Dorianne Laux 2021

Dear Dorianne Laux, 

I was fortunate enough to read your poem “The Life of Trees” in my English class. After analyzing, scrutinizing, and contemplating each line, I was able to draw distinct parallels between my life and the life of trees. I feel that humanity could learn a lot from your poem, especially during this pandemic, regarding what the lives of trees would look like if they weren’t inanimate objects. 

I found that the free-verse of the poem accurately represented the life of the trees as they are free-flowing “beings / from the muted world who care / nothing for Money, Politics, Power, / Will or Right, who want little from the night / but a few dead stars going dim.” In the hectic lives we live in, it’s good to sometimes take a step back and enjoy the world from the perspective of trees. One hobby that I was able to pick up during the pandemic was gardening. Interacting with nature through this newfound appreciation of gardening has given me a reason to love the world we live in. In my family’s garden we plant a variety of different vegetables used in Indian cooking such as snake gourd, okra, and eggplant. We not only plant vegetables but also have a separate area for mint, basil, curry leaves, and other herbs that produce a fresh aroma that envelopes my entire house. Did you ever have a garden or any other interests that helped you generate ideas for your poems? I read that you grew up in a suburban area just like me and was also wondering, how greatly did the freedom to explore your surrounding environment impact your future as a writer? 

I am a bit afraid of what the future holds for trees. Just a few years back, my hometown was filled with fields of nature. Now it seems that almost every day a new attraction is being built to commercialize an area that was once fluid. I loved the lines, “If trees could speak, / they wouldn't, only hum some low / green note, roll their pinecones / down the empty streets and blame it, / with a shrug, on the cold wind.” As the child of two Indian immigrants, those lines immediately struck me with comparisons to the peaceful protests of Mahatma Gandhi. Similar to Gandhi, trees use their silence as a weapon against the ever-changing world we live in. How do you believe trees would react towards a conflict similar to what Mahatma Gandhi faced? 

Out of the entire poem, I found the last line, “And though the stars / return they do not offer thanks, only / ooze a sticky sap from their roundish/concentric wounds, clap the water / from their needles, straighten their spines / and breathe, and breathe again”, a fitting end to cap off your personification of the trees. I was not only able to see the tree in the night sky but also picture its scent, feeling, and voice. Why did you want to end the poem with the imagery of a tree in the “spangled dark”? 

After reading through this poem filled with correlations to my own life, your words have made me rethink my daily routine. Now I take a few minutes out of each day to take a walk and feel the nature around me. I have picked up gardening once again, as I have now realized that trees 

and the nature around us will be our mark on the next generation. They were born long before us and will die long after, trees are an everlasting constant and we must do what we can to preserve them. I can’t thank you enough for the nostalgia you have provided me. Not only that but you have also given me a new view of what the world should look like after I pass. 

Sincerely,

Vikas

Dear Ms. Dorianne Laux, 

My name is Ferial, and I am a 14-year-old in 8th grade. 

As I scrolled through the list of poets for this Dear Poet project, your poem was the one that connected with me most. I felt that it described the most beautiful and admirable elements of nature and its life. My thoughts, following those of admiration, were those of curiosity, wondering if the trees in this poem are an outlet for expressing something deeper and if you’re using them as a metaphor for something else. 

While reading your poem, “Life of Trees”, I was incredibly curious as to how you came to write it. The more I read it, the more I discovered about nature and its connection with humans. What was your writing process, and how did you select specific details and descriptive language? There seems to be a lot of richness and layers of meaning and emotion, and I cannot help but wonder how it was born, and by what it was inspired. 

I interpret “Life of Trees” to be a snapshot and analogy of the world around us, capturing the essence and minds of trees. A work of observation on every level, inspired by our own lives. I see it even as much more, and I am eager to discover the hidden meanings and inspirations behind the words that have been taken from your own life experience. 

beings 

from the muted world who care 

nothing for Money, Politics, Power, 

Will or Right, who want little from the night 

but a few dead stars going dim, a white owl 

lifting from their limbs, 

The passage above is one of my favorite parts of the poem. It is written so subtly and beautifully with such powerful underlying meaning. 

I figure it must be nice to be satisfied with the stars like they are. 

Unlike how many people remain unsatisfied with their lives no matter what it brings them. I often wish humanity was able to view the world through the lens of this poem. Through the lens of the trees. 

Through this passage, I feel the pain and the beauty, the simplicity and the complexity of everything around me. It connects me with the heavy pulse, the hum in the wind, and the breath of trees. It is almost incredibly painful the way it is all they want. Among all space, the universe, and this planet, they want very little. There is something quite painful about it that I just cannot put a finger on.

When I near the end of the poem, I feel like I am saying goodbye to family and friends after a gathering and a long night. I am walking to my car, the path illuminated by only a few outdoor lights. The night cold and windy, the noise of the trees pushing through and around the wind. I feel like I am breathing with the trees, the rise and fall of my chest perfectly inline. 

Each breath is deep and full of fresh air that the trees have given to us. I feel like I have just closed a book that I will now call my favorite. The kind of book and the kind of ending that makes you sit for a while with your eyes squinted just so in admiration and bewilderment. I feel like I have just woken from a dream. Woken up and walked over to my window seat, sitting and watching the sunrise behind the silhouette of trees. 

I feel like I have lived differently, that I have experienced and revisited a plethora of emotions that I have experienced in my lifetime. 

I have gotten slightly carried away with this letter, even after condensing my initial 4 page thoughts, but there is just so much that I connect to and wish to express. Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts and responses to your wonderful work, and thank you for creating poems like these for all people to consume, and for all people to hopefully experience and enjoy the way I have. 

Sincerely, 

Ferial 

Dear Ms. Laux,

Since I was young, I've thought of what it would be like to live as a dog, or a cat, or a flower or a tree. Sure in school we're told the trees are alive. They're alive and they make their own food! Of course they're alive, they grow, they survive! They're alive without the burden of "Money, Politics, Power, Will or Right" (that was my favorite line). To me, trees are the elephants of the plant kingdom, offering peace and stability and wisdom to the flowers. Your poem put my childhood thoughts into concise words. To live as a tree would be a responsibility. Not one of dreadful, looming deadlines and stressed nights, but one that keeps everything in its place and order. Thank you for teaching me to live as a tree.

Love,

Desi 

Dear Dorianne Laux, 

I read The Life of Trees and it resonates in my bones: parts of my being that will endure as long  as they are not destroyed. While the rest may become undistinguishable in the soil, I feel the  words in a way that will last beyond extinction. I spoke through a grin as I read aloud, “If trees  could speak, they wouldn't, only hum some low green note, roll their pinecones down the empty  streets and blame it, with a shrug, on the cold wind”. And then I it read over. I was wondering if the concepts of which you wrote in this poem were paths of thought that you had mulled over for  some time? If not, do you often find yourself thinking about such ideas?  

This poem is so true: veracity only bested by the trees. 

In the search for truth, whatever that may be, I’ve found it most consistently in the greenery. Though I know the sky and the ocean are truer than true, I do not understand the currents or  wind, like I do the wood. Even better, the way snow weighs on pine: I have a hard time conjuring  any vision or thought more sincere. For the trees have no alternative motive: “beings /from the  muted world who care /nothing for Money, Politics, Power, /Will or Right”.  

Truth is often soft, like that pine snow. Perhaps it is one’s aversion to softness that inspires their  resentment towards poetry. Poetry only requires words and to be called poetry (not necessarily  by the author), for it to qualify as such. Some, refusing space in that allusiveness is meant to  thrive, say they never could like poetry, and so they never will. Frightened by their natural  malleability, they hide behind stark stances and slabs of stone. The stone that refuses the chisel, and decisiveness that rejects another voice: these are rigid minds (much unlike that pine snow). 

And it is precisely artificial, just like hate and tense lungs. No, nature is suggestive. Ground is  never the same. Nature is reason, even in its decay. Nature is reason, even in its droughts and  hurricanes, prey and preying. Nature remains reasonable as it is interrupted by unwavering greed. As the falling water freezes, it wants to fall again, if we ever let it breathe. An insistent reminder  that we, we are the only things here that have not learned to lean with, nature, we destroy with  our schemes. 

Trees are only honest. They remind me always to breathe. We take advantage of their kindness,  too. Their gentle offering of warmth and letter material. I humbly suggest that the only thing we  have collectively learned how to do, is overkill. How cruel? Cruel to forsake the very things that  remind one of humanity. The trees: they nudge us towards being.  

I hear it in hushed queries from the wood. Who are you when you are alone with the trees? 

Thank you for your words, 

Lucy  

Dear Dorianne Laux,                                                                     

I am frustrated. I am frustrated because I want to live the simple life of a tree, but I feel as if I will never be able to. I am scared society is running too far from the natural world, too far from morality, and too far from decency. Your poem made me realize that as humans, we are too concerned with ourselves and that we care way too much about insignificant things. Speaking to my own experiences, I often feel out of place in a school where girls give so much meaning to social media likes, parties, and popularity. Sometimes I pretend to value such trivial things in order to fit in, but deep down I am grounded like the trees.

You put everything I feel, everything I believe, and everything I want for society into one work of literature. “The Life of Trees” is a piece I wish everyone would read; I wish everyone would feel the way you, the trees, and I feel. As I read your poem, I realized that our lives are worth the same as a trees’. We share the same purpose: to survive and reproduce. As humans, we make life much more complicated than it needs to be.  I now see that the earth is split in half: one half is a loud world composed of the human race and its materialism, and the other half is a muted world composed of nature and its trees. Humans worry about money, politics, and power, while trees worry about sunlight, water, and nutrients. The difference here is clear. Humans have such self-serving needs, and trees have purely survival-based needs. Yes, with great humor, I want to live the life of a tree. Your words “Clouds shredding like ancient lace above their crowns” paint a picture in my head of the calm, minimalist life I could live.

Why can’t we shrug when things go wrong? Why do we fear so much, while the trees, “they fear nothing but the Hurricane, and Fire.” Why is it so hard for us to find simplicity in life? I am curious, how do you maintain simplicity in your life? How do you find balance between the materialistic world and the natural world? Finally, if you were given the choice to be a human or a tree, which life would you choose? Thank you for inspiring me.

Best,

Ava

Dear Dorianne Laux, 

My name is Ellie, and I’m a freshman at Nest+m in Manhattan, New York. I’m writing in regards to your poem, “Life of Trees.” It confused me, and helped me, and made me think about life in wholly new ways. Above all, it reminded me to breathe, and for that I can’t thank you enough. 

I've never been much of an outdoorsy person - mostly because I’ll scream my lungs out when a bug lands on me - but I have found myself to be fascinated by nature. I think that all humans are fascinated by nature to some extent, because it possesses something that people rarely ever do. It’s peaceful. For trees, plants, clouds, and butterflies, peace seems to come naturally. As you said, it’s because trees don't care about politics, or money, or power. They don't need prayer to find solace. They just exist, and exist without yearning for meaning or to have place in this world. They have a place, and that place is wherever their roots have buried themselves in the dirt. Wherever they are right now, that is their place. They don't need a job, they don't need God. They just exist. 

I've wanted to exist for so long now. I’ve just started highschool, where the idea that you have to fight to be seen is so deeply ingrained. Fighting to feel like a living thing who deserves love is exhausting. To constantly feel the need to crawl your way out of obscurity and into something that’s worthy of life is just the worst feeling. I think trees are too confident in themselves to ever feel like that. 

Your poem reminds me of “The Giving Tree,” by Shel Silverstein. Maybe it’s just because they both have “tree” in the title, but I feel like they’re connected in more ways than just that. I remember being depressed by “The Giving Tree” as a kid, which is probably not the intention of the book. But I couldn’t help it, because all I could think when flipping through those pages was how selfish that kid was, and how much of a pushover the Giving Tree was. Now, I don’t see the Giving Tree as a pushover. I see it as a thing who has its priorities straight, which I admire and envy all at once. 

When it comes down to it, trees aren’t dumber than humans. They’re not less advanced - they simply have their priorities in other places. They prioritize living and love. They prioritize breathing. We can all learn a thing or two from that. 

This leads me to the question, does peace come from getting your priorities straight? I’m not sure, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to figure it out anytime soon. For now, let’s just all keep remembering to breathe. (If you do it, I will!) 

Sincerely, 

Ellie