Sycamorosely Contemplating Sycamourning

Sycamores are the reason I started art school, long ago.

I was laboriously trying to paint them, as a self-taught amateur, and was so disgusted with the results, I could not capture their fullness and glory.

Then when my dad commented that my efforts looked like paint-by-number attempts

I knew I needed professional help. So I started classes and made some progress on other subjects

but somehow I never got around to the sycamores

and now I see I never will.

They are all dying.

As mentioned in an earlier post, their leaves suddenly started shriveling, just after they emerged this spring.

Unless we abruptly and radically change our habit of burning fuel for energy

the sycamore is only the first species of tree to go functionally extinct.

Their leaves are falling on the ground.

Their branches are almost completely bare.

The leaves of other sorts of trees that still have them are so wilted and frail that a light breeze makes them appear as though they are in a violent howling wind.

I have noted before that the incidence of people being killed by falling trees and branches is increasing. In this terrible story a young boy has been crushed by a falling branch. Trees are dangerous now. Their roots are rotting so they topple over with greater frequency, their branches are weakened so they break and fall.

Watch out.