>Recently, when I was in residency at VCCA, I think, I saw several gingko trees in various stages of undress. I found it curious that they wouldn’t have all gotten naked at the same time, in a show of solidarity against all those brash maples and oaks. One, the oldest and tallest, seemed to disrobe all in one day and someone–it is an artists’ colony after all–made assembled an installation of golden piles in a neat circle around the trunk. But today, while reading Grace Paley’s Begin Again, her collected poems, I came across this:
An Arboreal Mystery
On Jane Street in October
I saw three gingko trees
the first is naked to the bony branch
the second is a dance of little golden fans
the third is green as green September
–Grace Paley
