Trees

Our deodara cedar is getting new growth.

I put the next picture up at Facebook, with Robert Frost's poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay." It especially made me think of the first three lines:

Nature's first green is gold,
her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower. . .

And it's so true that tender young leaves look like yellowish-green flowers.

The poem goes on to consider the brevity of the season and to contemplate the inevitable decline and, implicitly, our mortality:

Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Aging, decline and all, are melancholy themes, but not necessarily cause for despair, especially for Christians. It's a similar theme to the hymn, "Abide with me," which says, "Change and decay in all around I see," but the hymn continues, "O, thou who changest not, abide with me." Although maybe Frost's poem is only considering the brevity of youth, not the brevity of life. It progresses to summer and to day, but not to fall or winter, evening or night. Perhaps it's about the loss of youthful idealism and innocence.

I may just call this tree "His Majesty" in my mind.