One of our magnificent 142-year-old Cladrastis kentukea, or Kentucky yellowwoods, took a big hit in a storm last month. You can see some of the damage in the photo. We had to call the emergency tree guys in, because one of the broken limbs came down on a utility wire.
Here’s what the tree looked like when they got done.
We’ve known for a long time that the two oldest, gnarliest yellowwoods were near the end of their natural life. We’ve been nursing them along for years and years, just trying to keep them going. The second picture shows how extensively they’ve rotted. The Buildings and Grounds committee has been keeping a dubious eye on them, especially during hurricane season. But the old yellowwoods are beloved by young and old, and no one has wanted to let them go.
It was Deacon Asa Gray, the great botanist, who planted them in 1872 to adorn First Church's newly built Sixth Meetinghouse—a massive stone pile meant to last for the ages. Grand trees for a grand church edifice.
He was a close colleague of Charles Darwin, was Asa Gray. The two shared a lifelong correspondence and a profound mutual respect, despite their differences. Gray wished that Darwin could bring himself to recognize God’s hand in all the wonders of nature, including evolution, but Darwin couldn’t go quite that far: It was a mystery, he wrote, “too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.” Nevertheless, the two remained loyal friends.
A lot has happened since 1872. The young tree of Darwin’s great theory of evolution has grown to full maturity and transformed the landscape around it, while the old tree of the medieval church, that majestic structure, has been slowly, quietly failing. Those who love it have tried hard to nurse it along, but the aging wood has grown soft and brittle in many places, and it seems as if it can only be a matter of time before the whole thing topples.
Meanwhile, Gray’s lovely little yellowwood saplings, in whose every leaf and vein and cell he saw God’s wonderful handiwork, have grown up and grown old too.
But look behind and just to the left of this one.
We planted a pair of these about 10 years ago, when we learned that Asa’s trees were failing. Baby yellowwoods, all sap and green wood.
It’s hard to imagine that they could ever amount to much. I know when those big trees come down all we’ll be able to see is the giant hole they’ve left behind.
But new life is coming up behind. We need to trust it. We can’t keep putting all our energy into trying to keep the past alive.