The Duck Pond

I visited the pond near my school today. It was not my first visit—I had been a couple times before, once as an assignment, where the goal of the assignment was to find an animal, study it, become acquainted with it, and learn from it. I had thought that maybe ducks would have something to teach me, so I found myself this pond, a place where I could try and understand what it might be like to be a duck: how they move, how they see the world. I sat and watched the ducks for an hour. I became very familiar with the animal, trying my best to imitate their movements when I got home.  That was my first trip to the Trinity Park Duck Pond, learning how to be more like a duck. In today’s visit, however, I learned from the trees. 

“Trinity Park Duck Pond” is a very fitting name for the pond—there are maybe a hundred ducks that can be found there. The pond is located right between downtown and the arts district, near the river and across the street from one of my favorite coffee shops, actually. I like to get coffee from there sometimes and walk over the small hill and down to the pond—I have done it a few times now since my first trip there. While the pond is close to two of the busiest places in town, that is not hard to forget once you are there. Trees surround the pond, a sight not uncommon in Fort Worth but nonetheless appreciated, appreciated so, personally, for the cypress trees. There are not many cypress trees in North Texas, at least, not that I have seen. Their wicked trunks and knobby roots stand out from that of the normal oaks, pecans, and cedar elms of the area, of which this pond had in plenty. The pond also harbored mesquite trees, junipers, and some sort of pine tree—I do not know pine trees well. As I sat by the pond today, I studied these trees, compared them to one another, and I learned a little bit about each species’ personality.

I like the cypress trees for their majesty. They are tall and still but have a quality of downward motion about them, like paused rainfall. Their branches start parallel to the ground and slightly droop towards the ground as they project out horizontally from the trunk. The leaves of these branches look as if they are dripping off of the tree, exacerbating the rainfall effect. The tree is somber. Yet, it is true. The cypress has a well-defined trunk—the other branches do not compete for control. The trunk knows where it wants to go: up. It pays no regard to the sun’s influence, arrogant in its pursuit of the sky, a tower of Babel.

The pines act the same. Neither are like the nearby pecans or oaks, slow and indecisive in their development. These trees only have trunks up to the base of their crowns, where the main trunk splits into many. From that point, each tree is unique, each a product of the place it is planted. An oak does not ignore the influence of its environment. It takes notice of the sun and the world it lives in, and it grows accordingly, shaping itself for survival. In this game of chess against the sun, the oak tree is playing defense, careful and responsive to the sun’s moves. This is unlike the cypress tree, charging ahead with the attack strategy.

I admire the oak tree for its thoughtfulness, yet I am made anxious by the competition between its branches. As there is no dominant trunk, every branch is fighting to claim control. Which deserves the most sustenance? Is it the eldest branch, the one that has been providing since the beginning? Or is it the highest reaching branch, it sending its leaves out beyond the canopy of the other trees? How about the east, south, or west-most facing branch? More than just the survival of the tree as a whole, each branch has desires of its own. The trees shed branches every year—they do not want to be one of them.