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Archive Number 1563 | ||
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Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 14:48:41 -0600
I've been following this thread with great interest - and thought you might like a true story dealing with a dead tree. A friend of mine used to teach calligraphy to inmates at a maximum security prison here in Alberta. Many of them had little hope of ever getting out. She decided to get them to work on Lloyd Reynolds' weathergrams - "a very short poem of about ten words or less... (which is calligraphed on a strip of kraft paper) and then hung on a bough or branch in the garden, at a campsite or along a mountain trail. The subject matter is usually seasonal and the weathergram is left out between solstice or equinox or between equinox or solstice." (Reynolds' words - if anyone is interested in his article on them I will forward.) They got into talking about their origins and what should be written, and all the men really took to these. Noreen told them they were a kind of appreciation of nature. Well, outside the prison walls, in the little bit of space the men could see when they were in the exercise yard, was a mountain ash - for the last two years not a leaf had appeared and many limbs were obviously dead wood. They asked her if they could calligraph weathergrams to hang on the ash for the autumn equinox - she got some of the most amazing words and calligraphy and the men asked if they could go and hang their weathergrams on the tree. The chief warden gave permission (almost unheard of) - one man at a time could go outside the prison walls under guard and hang their weathergram. It was needless to say a very emotional time, being outside prison walls albeit briefly and adding their words to the tree's dead branches. The most amazing thing is the following spring the tree leafed and fruited, and has continued to do so. Merle | ||