A year ago I read Dr. Oliver Sacks’ posthumously published collection of essays, Everything in Its Place (2019). Some people fancy themselves so sophisticated that nothing surprises them. They’re too cool for wonder. Whatever that silly affectation is called, Sacks was stricken with its opposite. Everything seemed to amaze him. I wonder if this state has something to do with knowing so much (Sacks was an insatiable polymath) that you realize how little you know. Perhaps only the truly learned can appreciate their ignorance.
The essay that
particularly impressed me was “Night of the Ginkgo,” first published in The
New Yorker in 2014. Sacks describes a botanical wonder: the gingko, a
prehistoric gymnosperm that drops all of its leaves at once, often overnight.
Sacks goes on to quote an excerpt from “The Consent” (Sentences, 1980),
a sonnet by Howard Nemerov:
“Late in November, on a
single night
Not even near to freezing,
the ginkgo trees
That stand along the walk
drop all their leaves
In one consent, and
neither to rain nor to wind
But as though to time
alone: the golden and green
Leaves litter the lawn
today, that yesterday
Had spread aloft their
fluttering fans of light.
“What signal from the
stars? What senses took it in?
What in those wooden
motives so decided
To strike their leaves, to
down their leaves,
Rebellion or surrender?
and if this
Can happen thus, what race
shall be exempt?
What use to learn the
lessons taught by time,
If a star at any time may
tell us: Now.”
Whereas Sacks emphasize
wonder at the phenomenon, Nemerov ponders its meaning. We are as mortal as
leaves, and Isaiah reminds us that “all flesh is grass.” Yet we dismiss
determinism and proudly parade our free will. What force beyond us might some
early winter night erase us from creation? Clearly, apart from their beauty,
gingkoes intrigued Nemerov. He returns to them in “Gingkoes in Fall”:
“They are the oldest
living captive race,
Primitive gymnosperms that
in the wild
Are rarely found or never,
temple trees
Brought down in line
unbroken from the deep
Past where the Yellow
Emperor lies tombed.
“Their fallen yellow fruit
mimics the scent
Of human vomit, the
definite statement of
An attitude, and their
translucency of leaf.
Filtering a urinary yellow
light.
Remarks a delicate wasting
of the world.
“An innuendo to be
clarified
In winter when they
defecate their leaves
And bear the burden of
their branches up
Alone and bare, dynastic
diagrams
Of their distinguished genealogies.”
Vomit, urine and defecation.
And yet these ancient trees possess “distinguished genealogies.”
2 comments:
Those who are easily given to boredom are incapable of wonder.
Ginkgo flowers are sexually incomplete: there must be a male-flowered tree nearby for the female-flowered tree to bear the fruit. The fruits give off their stink when crushed, and since they lie thick on the ground to be easily overlooked in lawn grass and leaf litter, passers-by soon crush them and get the reward. Vomit barely reaches to that scent -- dead skunk comes nearer. Wealthy institutions pay extra to have their ornamental plantings sorted all-male from the nursery.
A couple of years ago I saw a Korean lady and her daughter gathering the new-fallen fruit on the lawn of the Episcopal church. Through a double barrier of language and shyness I came to understand they were for soup.
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