{"id":2853,"date":"2022-08-07T14:05:47","date_gmt":"2022-08-07T14:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=2853"},"modified":"2022-08-07T21:11:42","modified_gmt":"2022-08-07T21:11:42","slug":"driven-life-of-the-plane-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=2853","title":{"rendered":"Driven — Life of the Plane Trees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In March 2020, obsessed with the platanes, or plane trees that lend magic to the roads in southern France, I organized a series of poems and pictures about their disappeance.  Covid derailed the presentation of the piece\u2014 the series languished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two and a half years later, I have returned to the same place in Cam\u00e9las, southwest France, return to the trees, to the scene of poetic, arbored and aesthetic drama \u2014 how are things now?\u00a0 There are still graceful roads with remaining trees, sometimes 200 years old, but they stand like the Citro\u00ebn or Deux Chevaux, a Charles Trenet song alongside gleaming strips of bold blacktop drawn straight on the land.\u00a0\u201cOld\u201d roads are now designated for bikes or tractors.\u00a0 The modern highway obsession exposes all kinds of things \u2014 for moderns, it\u2019s not the journey, it\u2019s the destination. With speed and air conditioning, who gives a damn about quaint shade. Just when Americans are desperate to relearn the language of ecological coexistence, those who speak it are abandoning it. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the trees?  I\u2019m here on a day when the air is already hot; in the care of the platanes, I am cool, in their corridor of peace.  As much as I came to check on them, they check on me.  The massacre that I witnessed and photographed is over; trunks and limbs that resembled bones and body parts of animals have long ago been carted away.  The trees that remain are tagged with little metal plates, 612, number of the highway \u2014 G16+ 550.  Individual and prisoner, naming\u2019s double entendre.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their trunks split into a trio of uplifted arms.  Their leaves are still bright green oxygenated veins that hold life, hold secrets not tightly, given to those who ask.  They are full of knowledge about the long game, la dur\u00e9e \u2014 about light moves, about the shared dance.  In metamorphoses we survive, we move on.  They offer a vision of ourselves walking eight steps ahead, our next move, next creative breath.  There for the taking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In March 2020, obsessed with the platanes, or plane trees that lend magic to the roads in southern France, I organized a series of poems and pictures about their disappeance.  Covid derailed the presentation of the piece\u2014 the series languished. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4D5qU-K1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2853"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2863,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2853\/revisions\/2863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}