"Lichens make my heart go flutter"

It's full-on winter now, the sky fog-filled all day -- brighter in the south, so that one can guess that climbing Spencer Butte would put you above it, under clear blue, looking out onto a sea of white. Only winter birds are left: scrub jays, little finches, tree-fuls of chattering starlings, and doubtless quite a few crows, though I didn't see any on my walk up the hill to the Catholic church this afternoon. All the moisture in the air from the fog, and the occasional rainstorm, plumps up the lichens that live on the branches of all the oaks and ashes, turning the winter-bare trees not grey-brown but rather, pale green.

Someone said I could quote the silly poem he wrote me a few years back if he remained anonymous. (But really...) I have to preface this by pointing out that although "lichen" is pronounced "ly-ken," we'd heard David Attenborough say "litchen" on his Life on Earth TV series years and years ago. (We assume that was a Briticism.) So on this particular day, I urged the unnamed poet to go take a look at the particularly nice lichens on the trees along 39th, at the edge of Tugman Park. He didn't actually go look (nor did he serve them for dinner; I doubt they're edible), but e-mailed this poem to me at work:

"Off the branches, to the kitchens
Southern Tugman's luscious lichens
Like 'em with a bit o' butter
Lichens make my heart go flutter."
Scruffy young oaks with lichens:


Closer views: