THE WAR CONTINUES
And as in most wars, it is the innocent who are the victims in a campaign waged in defense of some social principle (misguided or not).  I pretty much knew that when I came home after work today I would be pissed--the tree trimmers were at it again this morning, taking out more of the "dangerous" albizias.  Sure enough, I arrived home to find my lanai view "improved" with a much better view of the parking lot.  Here are the views I have been accustomed to:

Invisible Parking Lot

Tranquil Treetops

Here is the view I now must turn my back on when lighting my morning incense

Parking Lot in Paradise

I have a feeling that the remaining trees to the right and left of the gaping area will be gone by tonight: the tree trimmer trucks are still lurking.

Such irony after returning from a brief autumn visit to Portland where the tree is pretty much the dominant life form.  I was talking with our hotel desk clerk there who told me that Portland was built by timber barons, much like Hawaii was built by the pineapple and sugar industry.  But things do change.  Paradise keeps getting adjusted and paved over for parking lots and developments, much as my peaceful memory of the Portland Japanese Garden has been overwritten with the new "landscape" view from my lanai.  Somehow though, Portland has a social consciousness that has preserved the tree despite the timber industry.

Of course it isn't really war against the trees themselves (that's more the case with kudzu); the battle conducted with chain saws and wood chippers is waged to protect against liability in the case of a tree branch falling on one of the precious automobiles in the parking lot (which appears much bigger than I previously perceived from the 10th floor).  Oh, and of course to avoid tree limbs falling on precious children, who are probably more likely to be run over by the precious automobiles than to be injured by the trees.  We couldn't possibly park the cars somewhere else. And I spent a lot of time as a kid running around in untended dangerous woods and never got clobbered by anything (although I did walk into a tree and knock myself out after getting hit on the head with a softball at a church picnic.)

Still, nobody seems to be mourning the trees but me; I think everyone else is inside watching TV, hyped up on news and commercials about the the health and auto insurance everyone absolutely must have.  Has anyone considered that the Geico gecko lives in one of the albizias? I've seen his cousins there.

I'm just a little bitter because my lovely lanai is now not quite as conducive to the mood I like for meditation and painting.  I'll get used to it; I have no choice, and I'm sure many people will say it's not THAT bad.  In the larger scheme of things, what're a few trees?  A real war is bloody, claims human life, causes famine, loss of livelihood, and even worse environmental destruction.  But peace is peace, and I have lost just a little of mine. And still...who mourns for the trees?