CITY TREES

The prompt: Between. This week, capture something between two things, reflect on the process of transition, or interpret this word in your own way.

Most streets in the city where I live have trees lining the pavements.

I’m sure it’s wonderful for the passers by. They are shady, and pretty, and they provide oxygen, and clean the air. Read about the 22 top benefits of trees. 

However, I always feel sorry for the poor trees stuck between two blocks of flats, cement, and cars, and pollution, and noisy people…

Trees in the city often look tired and sad to me…

Tree Trapped Between Blocks of Flats

Beautiful Palm Tree Stuck Between Cars

Some, like this one, even manage to grow inside buildings between the bricks, fortunately this lucky tree you can also hear the bells chiming from the Mosque Tower in the background:

Tree Growing Inside a House

Tree at the End of an Alley Between Two Walls

City Trees. I always feel they should be in the country, breathing pure air, listening to the wind, and watching the birds play…

That’s what this beautiful poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay is all about.

City Trees

The trees along this city street,
Save for the traffic and the trains,
Would make a sound as thin and sweet
As trees in country lanes.

And people standing in their shade
Out of a shower, undoubtedly
Would hear such music as is made
Upon a country tree.

Oh, little leaves that are so dumb
Against the shrieking city air,
I watch you when the wind has come,—
I know what sound is there.

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist b. 1892  d. 1950. She was the third woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923 for “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver“.

This final tree is standing between two doorposts. It’s a restaurant patio, just outside the Faculty of Arts, providing a leafy shade for hungry tourists and teachers…

Are there ‘sad’ trees in your city?

Would you like to see some of the other entries for ‘between’?