Pondering the Ponderosa Pine
We are very happy that Dr. Carl Leggo from the Department of Language and Literacy Education at UBC phoned us and recorded his poem titled Pondering the Ponderosa Pine.
I heard this poem during the EcoPoetics Campus Walk event last June for the first time and immediately, I was in love.
The poem is about the Ponderosa Pine tree which serves as the namesake of the Ponderosa Commons building where our department is situated.
In the poem, Dr. Leggo says,
ever green, ever rooted, ever patient,
ever willing to teach us if we are willing to learn
teach us to remember we are guests
on an ancient land with countless stories
teach us to walk tenderly with one another,
filled with memories and hopes for others, too
teach us to know this place of mind
is also a place of mindfulness
This old old pine tree is a monument of historicity and stories this land has been accumulating, and this poem reminds us that we can find something extraordinary within our ordinary. After the EcoPoetics walk, I often look up the trees around the campus and try to imagine the stories and situate myself in the history.
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