The Mighty Ones

It is getting harder to stand here each year. I must have been here for 125 years.

Why, I remember when I could look over east and see nothing but tall grass and buffalo. And I could see some of my relatives, some really old timers and some youngsters and all ages in between. We would wave to each other each morning as the sun peeked up. But there aren't many of us anymore. There surely aren't any buffalo.

I heard a story about how I got here. You see, with all this yummy soil between here and the lakes called the Great Lakes, lots of my relatives settled these areas. We came from the east and the winds carried our seeds high in the air. The seeds have something like the feathers of my friends, the birds. The seeds look, I am told, like little puffs of cotton. I guess that's why I am called a cottonwood tree.

Anyway, we are a proud family. We towered over the land and could watch all that was happening. My grandparents produced a lot of seeds over there by those big lakes and some of the seeds blew to about halfway between where they stood and where I stand, into an area called by people, Minnesota. That was many summers ago.

And then my parents produced seeds that blew in the winds from the east over to where I now am. So there were several of us that sunk our feet into the rich loam of these prairies. And, as I said before, there are precious few of us left.

What happened to all of my relatives? Why, I've heard that about 75 to 125 summers ago, as people were moving into this area, they would cut us down for our fine wood to make long, straight and strong timbers. For their barns to help shelter their cattle and horses. And for their sheds to protect their chickens and pigs. And to make parts for machinery so they could cut this beautiful grass to feed their cattle and horses. And to make machines to break up the soil so they could plant something called wheat and corn and oats and barley. It always made me sad to see more of my gentle neighbor grasses disappear. The grasses were beautiful and smelled so good. And my friends the birds- pheasants, meadow larks, robins, crows, blackbirds, sparrows, owls and many others- they all made their homes in the grasses and would feast on the grasshoppers and other insects they found in the grasses.

But, alas, killing my neighbor grasses is what people call progress. Little do the people see what I see from way up here. The way the soil that I thrive on and the people plant their wheat and stuff in - the way the dear soil now gets washed away by the water from the clouds and blows away by the strong winds from where the snow comes. It makes me sad. And more and more of my distant relatives - other trees - are getting cut down so more corn and wheat and stuff can be planted. And it is we, the strong and mighty ones, with our feet firmly in the soil, we are the ones that stand up to the winds and weaken them so they don't blow the soil or blow down their barns. And now we are so few....

I'm happy for that little boy person who comes to sit at my feet and hugs me and listens to me. I am getting so lonely. And I’ve been telling him about what it’s like to be a mighty cottonwood tree. 

By JD Thompson