New Jersey: Ancient Poplar tree old as Abe Lincoln’s birth
In a section of New Jersey’s woods stands a tall, majestic poplar tree
perched on top of rocky cliffs above the Hudson River. Near the bottom
of its trunk hangs a sign that reads, “This tree took root the year
that Lincoln was born: 1809.”
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I pass the poplar tree often on hikes up a hilly trail, and crane my
head toward its top – more than a hundred feet from the ground. Its
trunk is way too wide for me to wrap my arms around. In the winter,
big, bare branches stand out starkly against a gray or azure sky, like
boldly etched pen-and-ink designs. Sometimes, when it snows, the tree
is swathed in white with a glassy glaze.
Then, when spring arrives, broad, squarish leaves emerge, followed soon by tuliplike flowers in subtle shades of orange, yellow, and the lightest green. But no matter the season, weather, or world events, the poplar has stood stalwart while 200 years of history happened. These double centuries are,
indeed, replete with history: economic and political upheavals,
medical and scientific breakthroughs, wars and terrorist attacks,
tremendous technological advances, and 28 subsequent presidents –
peaceful intervals interspersed between tempest-torn times. Nature
also alternates between tranquility and raging storms. The poplar tree
has often been bombarded and attacked by ice and snow, and torrential
winds and rain.
Some summers it is scorched by unrelenting heat and drought. On a stormy winter day, I went out into the woods and watched the poplar’s branches gyrating with the wind. “That is why most of them do not break,” a fellow hiker explained to me. “Because of their flexibility, they bend along with the wind rather than resisting it.” That trait of flexibility – the capacity to change position as circumstances so demand – is one for which Lincoln was admired, too. “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present,” he said in his second annual message to Congress.
“The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.” But not everyone agreed, and the president was often buffeted by bitter winds of
opposition. “If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the
attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other
business,” he said. I thought again of those words as I stood beside
our poplar tree and slid my hands along its trusty trunk. Some bits of
bark had broken off and many twigs lie scattered on the ground
following an “attack” from a recent winter squall.
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