I don't even know why I'm writing. The pollen here has been so thick and my nose is clogged, I keep sneezing, my eyes are watery and itchy and so is my throat. It happens every year. Kind of a tradition, now.
It is those trees, which I LOVE, that cause this stuffy irritable feeling. Love can hurt, love can heal, love can cause a stuffy nose...
When you think of it, what is pollen but part of a reproductive cycle. In those terms it sounds a bit disturbing, thinking of what it is you are really inhaling.
Pollination. Fertilization. Continuation. Survival.
Anyway, the trees are doing their pollinating thing, and have been for a couple of weeks. My car is perpetually covered in a powdered green. It is a fertilitymobile. Everywhere I drive I pollinate and cross pollinate. Perhaps a new species will emerge. I inhale it every time I leave the house. It is like snorting....well, I don't even want to think of that....maybe I should wear one of those cute, fashionable Japanese Hello Kitty surgical masks.
I still love trees, though. Just like I love other things that are not good for me, like chocolate. In a platonic sense of course. What wonders they are. Trees, not chocolate, but chocolate is derived from trees! Providing shade on a hot day. Producing oxygen. A place where little creatures can live. Not to mention our taking their lives for building material, paper etc. Actually, when you think of it, we kill them off quite thoughtlessly. Sometimes just because they are in our way. Murderous.
You know, animal activists and vegetarians complain about people eating other creatures but not about eating plantLIFE. I guess because (other than potatoes) they don't have eyes to watch you kill them. O.K., I love the flesh of both flora and fauna. Sadly, they are very tasty. I guess rocks would be okay to eat, you would at least get your minerals but no protein or vitamins. It would be hard on your teeth, too, so I guess we are resigned to eat other living things, there is no way around it. Were are human.
Coitus. Fertilization. Continuation. Survival.
Anyway, it is raining today, so that may take some of the pollen out of the air, plus I won't have to wash my fertilitymobile because the rain will do that for me :)
I leave you with this....
Trees
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.
- Joyce Kilmer
(although, it seems Mr. Kilmer was just a little too fond of trees. Past platonic, perhaps. Or he had a boob fetish.)