"In the company of flowers we know happiness. In the company of trees we are able to think. They foster meditation. Trees are very intellectual. There is nowhere on earth we can think so well as in a thin wood resting against a tree. Such at least is my experience . . ." That is John Stewart Collis in his book The Worm Forgives The Plough. And he has, indeed, some very practical experience in forestry. He also quotes Thoreau, who would sometimes refuse to make an engagement with a friend on the ground that he "had an appointment with a tree." Not so daft. Maybe he needed firewood.
Anyway, those very practical people in Crann have issued their appealing calendar for 1999*. Twelve first-class photographs by Frank Doyle, poems by Geraldine Cummins and text by Mary Holohan. Most of the photographs are close-ups of trees with a couple incorporating human faces; also one a crow and a fox. The poem to accompany the Yew tree reads: "Passage through/ Noble gates of memory/Les- sons from the past/Give light to future/Inside the eternal spiral." And coincidentally with reading this, a family member says that the birds are going mad about the berries on a yew nearby; it's covered with them, she says, including a mistle thrush, now rarely seen in these parts. Remember, the stone is deadly dangerous for humans to eat. Some daredevils chew the flesh without harm. Too much of a risk. The berries of the rowan make good chewing-and-spitting-out. In general, the producers of the calendar remind us that some of our most ancient laws existed for the protection of the tree and the punishment of any who would injure it.
Did you know that Japan has 67 per cent of its land area covered in forestry? Tonight Myles Mac Donncadha, who has spent 18 months there on a government scholarship learning the language, travelling and conducting research, will give the Sean MacBride Memorial Lecture under the auspices of the Society of Irish Foresters: "A Glimpse of Forestry in Japan". It is to be held in the Agriculture Building, UCD, room G08. That country, an invitation states, has fostered rich and fascinating wood culture, not to mention bears, fish protection and Irish timber houses. Enigmatic. Sparky.
£5 plus £1 postage from Crann, Main Street, Banagher, Co Offaly.