Only God Can Make a Tree ...

This is my second of a series of photographic posts I plan to record on my blog for organizational purposes. I hope to use them to create a scrapbook someday.

This post features a collection of my "Tree Pictures" which were taken in Vicksburg and surrounding area, in Natchez, and on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

[You can click on the pictures to enlarge them, if you'd like]

The "Friendship Oak"

This majestic live oak tree (located on the front lawn of the University of Southern Mississippi campus in Long Beach, Mississippi) is over 500 years old. To put that into perspective, the Friendship Oak was a sapling when Columbus set sail for the New World. If only it could talk ! Can you imagine the stories it could tell?

According to legend, those who step into its shadows must "remain friends throughout their lifetime."

Standing 50 feet tall, the tree's trunk is 5 feet 9 inches in diameter, and its foliage covers 156 feet!

An almost reverent feeling washed over me as I stood under this magnificent tree that has survived the wrath of countless hurricanes, and I hope it will continue to thrive for many years to come.

Here are some of the other old "survivors" of Katrina ...

100-Year-Old Oaks in a Natchez City Park ...

Fern- and Moss-Covered Oak on the Natchez Trace ...

An old Walnut Tree at the Windsor Ruins near Port Gibson, Mississippi. [To read the story behind the Ruins, click here] ...

A majestic old oak near the Windsor Ruins ...

Gingko Tree in Vicksburg National Military Park ...

Magnolia trunk, limbs, and roots.
[Also in the Military Park]

Kudzu-covered trees near Vicksburg ...

This tree was outside our mountain cabin in Blue Ridge, Georgia, and our three-year-old granddaughter Avery Grace observed that it looks like a "bear's face" ...

An old oak standing high on the bluffs overlooking
the Mississippi River at Natchez ...

And last, but not least, are these two pictures I took of the roots of a huge old oak tree in a residential section of Natchez. Beauty is where you find it, I guess, and I love those twisted old roots ...

As you can see, I love trees and never pass up an opportunity to photograph the ones that catch my eye. I love this poem by Joyce Kilmer, too ...

Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.