Hearing a Who

or From Microcosm to Nanocosm

In Horton Hears a Who, the 1954 children's book by Dr. Seuss, Horton the elephant hears a cry for help coming from a speck of dust.  It's made by a Who, one of the many Whos in Whoville, a tiny city on the tiny bit of fluff that is in danger of drifting into the cool of the pool in the jungle of Nool.  Horton saves it and, after many difficulties, he and the Whos convince the harder-of-hearing animals in the jungle that the Whos really do exist.  At long last, the other animals agree to help protect the tiny world.  It sticks in my mind (though I may be mistaken) that the 1970 TV special ends with a Who, on its just-rescued dust mote planet, hearing a cry for help from an even tinier atom of a world, starting the process all over again.

I found myself thinking about ever-decreasing, nesting worlds as I was looking at frost patterns on leaves in the garden, especially on the salad burnet, Susanna Mitchell marguerite daisies, and oregano.  The frost had been so particular, so choosy about where it settled:  on the ruffled edges of the salad burnet, with only a light tracery elsewhere on the leaves, and on the very tips of the hairs on the daisy and oregano leaves—hairs I wasn't really even aware of until the frost caught them.

Here I've just been learning to recognize the microclimates in the garden—to trace the patterns of light and wind and cold from one square foot to the next—and along come the nanoclimates, clamoring for attention, showing that the conditions from one millimeter to the next on a leaf can be just as varied.  I wonder, if we were to descend one level of awareness further, whether we would find that each micrometer has its own set of climatic conditions, too.  And so on, and so on, and so on.

Sometimes, the smaller a world gets, the larger it gets.  Those delicate patterns of ice were so precise and so intriguing (not to mention beautiful) that I found myself (in a mild sort of way) researching frost, nanoclimates, broadleafed evergreens, botanical protections against climatic conditions, and several interesting dead ends and charming byways en route.  I've never done that for mere "leaves"... Sometimes, when a world becomes small, it can expand exponentially.

Does anyone hear a Who?

Visiting Cards

or Dropping In

I was sitting on the bench by the kitchen window, staring out the glass door, stumped by a clue in the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle.  While part of my brain was churning over words and growling at them when they weren't seven letters long with a third letter of M (which didn't exactly encourage other words to show up), another part in the background was absentmindedly tracing the angles of an oak leaf caught between the stepping stones in the walkway, enjoying the contrast with the softer rosettes of dragon's blood sedum, wondering whether the sedum would fill in enough next summer to make it worth while to keep, savoring the combination of earth-brown and rust-red.  At some point, for no particular reason, background shifted to foreground.  I suddenly registered what I was looking at and thought, "But I don't have an oak tree."

It wasn't exactly an earth-shattering revelation—I mean, I've known for a while now that I don't have an oak tree; they're not the kinds of things that just sneak up on you.  But it started my mind on a new puzzle, trying to figure out where this particular leaf had dropped in from.  After taking a mental walk around the neighborhood, I'm pretty sure it came from some new landscaping in the commercial building across the street to the southwest—puzzle solved.

A sycamore leaf amid marguerite daisies

Curious about who else in the arboreal world might have come to call, I started prowling the garden in earnest.  I spotted fallen aspen leaves from the neighbor to the north; cottonwoods from the plaza a little farther away; Siberian elms from just about anywhere (if trees were e-mail, Siberian elms would be the spammers); sycamores from the west; seedpods from the golden rain tree to the northeast; ornamental pear leaves (I think, but I'm not very good with trees) from the neighbor on the east; desert willows from the south.

A couple of ideas struck me:

1. "Prevailing winds," my foot.
2. Enjoyment of the whole—"fallen leaves"—takes on an even richer flavor when you're aware of the individual leaves that comprise it, too.

A golden raintree seed pod with more daisy leaves

I'm keenly enjoying these "calling cards" the trees have left in my garden—the soft interplay of colors on the sycamore leaves, like the sheen of oil on water; the living brown and crisp lines of the rain tree's seed pods; the spare, ruffled edging on what we are calling the pear; the contrasts between tree and herb, evergreen and brown, seed and leaf and pebble.

This could very well be an ornamental pear leaf.

I've been blogging for a little over six months now.  Looking back as the New Year begins, I can't quite believe that it's been that long—that this is my 58th post, that I've bypassed 42,000 words.  Those aren't exactly milestones, but still, I didn't believe any of this would happen when I began.  You, my readers, have blown in from all ends of the globe—from Russia, Denmark, Slovenia, China, South Africa, South Korea, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and of course, my own beloved USA.  Amid the swirling winds of cyberspace, you have touched down briefly in my garden and left your visiting cards.  It has been my honor and pleasure to have you here.   Thank you for reading, for commenting, and for sharing in my microcosm.  You have added immeasurably to my enjoyment.

A cottonwood leaf with yarrow and oregano

Happy New Year to you all—may you find joy under every leaf and stone.