The Trees Have Faces

The trees around here have faces. I had never seen that before, outside of science fiction movies, and in those cases the trees also had personalities and were animate. These trees not so much. And yet they still have faces.

I recall the first tree I saw with a face was right next door, but it was incomplete. The eyebrows nose, and lips had survived the test of time, but not the eyes. Strange how my mind did a strange dance around that detail. Eyes explain a lot about a face, so that tree had no story to tell me, as blind as it was.

And I wondered why they were there, those faces on those trees. I imagined that in the ’70s some neighborhood group got together and decided the trees didn’t have enough character, or the neighborhood itself didn’t have enough character, or the character was all wrong and needed to be changed.

That’s when I assume the faces were applied to the trees. But who decided which trees were faced and which ones remained naked of face? Was it the sullen old man who lived in the house on the corner of East and School Streets? Or perhaps the little girl who skipped past the trees every day on her way to the new playground? Or someone else entirely?

Each face is also different. There is one three blocks down that has a mustache, and I assume it is a man but I cannot be absolutely sure. Another one around the corner has larger lips and I think it might be meant as an ethnic homage. But maybe that’s wishful thinking. I pass by that one the least so maybe I’m exaggerating the size of the lips, but I doubt it.

I imagine these trees with faces watch over us in a benevolent way, that they treat us with kid gloves to give us a chance to spread our wings and fly. Or maybe they really are just trees. With faces.

Sam