Margo Taft Stever

Several years ago, we replanted our backyard with pollinator-friendly native flowers, but now on a daily basis, only cabbage moths flit through the summer breezes. I wonder how long they will outlast the gathering heat. Gone are the common visitations of monarch and tiger swallowtail butterflies, now infrequent guests. Long departed are the Luna moths and other more exotic species that I regret to admit I sometimes caught in butterfly nets as a child. When my husband retired, he transformed our quarter acre into a bird sanctuary for sparrows, robins, woodpeckers, blue jays, and three dozen goldfinches that cluster around two bird feeders on a small apple tree. The goldfinches call the tree their home during summer when they are yellow and winter when they turn green.

During one of the many severe summer storms that knock down trees more frequently these days, our apple tree, the only surviving one of three, fell in a mournful posture onto the cut grass. We decided to try to revive it by pulling it back up and providing braces. The apple tree once again serves as the resting place for our tribe of goldfinches and has produced more apples than ever before, possibly expressing its joy in renewal.

Scientists have recently documented how trees communicate with each other and even to animal species through their root systems, branches, and leaves. If humans are to remain on earth, we must find a way to restore the natural world that we are currently destroying at a rapid rate through global warming and development. We must send positive stories to trees and plants. If each one of us participates in restorative actions, large and small, perhaps this world that we value will have a chance of surviving. My poem “Treehouse” depicts the earth humans will be left with if we continue on the current nihilistic trajectory.