My Favorite Christmas Tree

SAN FRANCISCO--I narrowed my eyes and cocked my head when I first saw them--street trees with soft gray-green leaves and red pompom blossoms. Couldn't be a bottlebrush, the Australian immigrant so common in L.A. These trees made me sit up and take notice because they looked like urban cousins of the enchanting 'ohi'a lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha) growing high in the misty cloud forests of Hawai'i, pollinated by red and green birds--honeycreepers--found nowhere else in the world.

Kissing cousins indeed, for these trees are Metrosideros excelsus, the New Zealand Christmas Tree, related to the native Hawaiian tree as the Maori people are related to the kanaka maoli of Hawai'i. Red and green, they reach their peak in midsummer--Christmastime in New Zealand, hence the common name. The maori name is pohutukawa or "drenched with spray," for it is a coastal tree in its native land and one of the few that can stand up to the coastal climate of San Francisco--the salty sand, wind and fog that keeps the city from having many native trees of its own. Perhaps a live oak or a California buckeye could claim indigenous roots.

So be it. I love an alien. I admit I love it partly with nostalgia for a landscape far away. But I also love the New Zealand Christmas Tree here and now gracing the seaside streets of San Francisco at Christmastime.

Season's greetings from the City by the Bay.

Wild Americans

ALCATRAZ--This blog has gone wild, taken on a life of its own. It seems determined to speak in poetry, in many voices. But hey, this Wandering Naturalist is all about Life, and especially Wildlife, so I can support this trend. The following poem was given by Lorenzo, a Native American leader and member of the Black Wolf Society, on November 13, 2004, the 35th anniversary commemoration of the Indian Occupation of Alcatraz:

wild or domesticated
you choose to be
wild

like the scent
of burning
sweet grass, cedar and sage
wild
like the brown skin brothers
in the cage of a border patrol van

wild
like the saguaro cactus
who teaches natural respect
to ignorant people
that want to touch
without asking

wild
like the 19 hopi men from oraibi
imprisoned on alcatraz in 1895
as hostiles
for seditious conduct
for opposing forced
education and assimilation
and preferring home teaching

wild
like the five sioux warriors
that occupied alcatraz
in 1964 for four hours

wild or domesticated
you choose
and demonstrate
your wildness
at the institution
wildness
in the way you walk
wildness
in your eyes
as you greet
another wild one
wildness
in the way you return wild love

wild or domesticated
you choose
and maintain your wildness
wildness
in the way you move
to unheard music
wildness
in the words you choose

wild or domesticated
you choose

--lorenzo 11.13.04

Guest Alcatraz Poet

ALCATRAZ--I've been doing time on this rock four weeks now, and I've tried my hand at a poem or two, but this poem by Richard "Joerg" Jorgenson (if only I could figure out how to write that with the umlaut it requires) comes from a place of more experience--both with Alcatraz and with poetry...

MYTHS AND SECRETS
Every day, new people arrive,
seeking mystique,
the ghosts, the guardian past,
to quarry the mysteries of Alcatraz.

They often wander around the jail in a daze,
guided by the audio tour,
lost in a mental mist,
awed by the tiers of tiny cells
in the huge house, chill as a walk-in,
by the thought of spending 23 hours a day
in a 5 X 9 foot cage of concrete
with a steel-barred grate for a door,
by the sound of cellblocks slamming
closed by remote control,
by the words of narrators, men
who were paid or punished here.

Each day, as part of my commute,
I board a ferry that people save all year
to take on vacation from jobs in Germany,
the Romantic lands, Low Countries and Nordic nations;
Spanish, Portuguese and French speakers
from North, Central and Sounta America;
the Mediterranean Holy Land and the Oriental;
island states: Britain, Ireland, Down Under,
Nippon, Hong Kong, the Phillippines;
folks from all over the U.S.A.:
sports teams, scout troops, schools
and corporate conventions.

We get paid to ride that boat
bobbing across the bay.
While Rangers guide their walks and talks,
Interpreters tell their tales
and maintenance workers change the lights,
my mates and I distribute the tapes
in six tongues, collect them,
deal with problems, answer questions,
direct the traffic flow, as the waves
break on the shore of the penitentiary door.
"Thanks" is the operative word.

And we watch the fronts sweep in, as a brush,
the washer and dryer of the sky,
cleaning, greening and browning;
the fog, as an army, invading, evading;
the rainbows and sunsets painting horizons;
the weather diverse as the cultures
coloring the S.F. Bay Area.
We live in a melting pot
where people from 150 lands reside.
We work at a former fort,
the first Pacific light,
a sanctuary for nesting birds
and famous prison,
a symbol of isolation,
which now brings people together,
a kind of U.N.,
as the island's exotic flora:
Monterey cypress,
Australian eucalyptus,
Mexican cactus
thriving in imported soil.
We come in a common search
through the layers of time
for the secrets and myths
of a singular isle.

--from Alcatraz: Poems of the Rock by Richard "Joerg" Jorgensen, available from City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Ave. (North Beach), San Francisco, or mail $10 to R.E. Jorgensen, 559 Valencia #46, San Francisco, CA 94110

Birdmen of Alcatraz

ALCATRAZ--
The famous Birdman, Robert Stroud,
never owned a bird on Alcatraz.
He authored scientific studies
on caged canaries from his cage in Leavenworth.

Today's birdman of Alcatraz, a ranger named Chris,
never owned a bird here, either,
free as the herons, seagulls, and cormorants he studies.

Armed federal guards monitored Mr. Stroud,
While the ranger acts as an unarmed federal guardian
of the birds he monitors.
Robert Stroud incited riots, biding time in isolation.
This modern man keeps peace between
nesting gulls and swarming tourists.
One was a ward of the Department of Justice,
the other a steward of the Department of the Interior.

They have but one thing in common, in their respective times:
They both serve Life on Alcatraz.