> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://dianaludwick.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Rings
- URL: https://dianaludwick.com/rings/
- Published: 2026-04-18T12:02:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T20:09:31.000Z
- Description: “Rings,” a musing on what happens in the span of a tree's life. Written April 18, poem 108 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: "Cupcake-Pleated Oak Tree Rings" by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026.
- Author: Diana Ludwick
- Tags: 2026 Poetry Challenge, Homage, Long form musings, Poems, Reminiscing, Acorn, April, Banter, Billy Joel, Cupcake, D.C., Derecho, Divorce, DOGE, Earthquake, El Nino, Felled Tree, Forest, Future, Generations, Government Shutdowns, Hurricane, Kids, La Nina, Love, Marriage, Math, Men, Music, NASA, National Cathedral, Oak, Past, Path, Politics, Progress, Rings, Saturday, Silence, Snowmageddon, Snowpacolypse, State Funeral, Time Passing, Tree, Tsunami, Walk, War, Women, Woods, Years, #Migrated-1792872215677, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-10-24 20:03

A massive American Sycamore  
(or maybe it's a Silver Maple)  
lays felled, its crown  
down the hill, towards the river.  
Its flared base aims  
towards the canal.  
Cupcake liner pleats  
present upwards to any  
passersby on the   
busy wooded path.  
  
Up and outward  
for anyone's viewing  
are the many concentric rings.  
An encyclopedia, a repository  
of history and nature.  
Proof of life,   
each band a testament.  
Receipts of resilience.  
  
Its sheer size arrests my legs;  
I stop to crouch down and stare.  
I snap a quick photo on wobbly feet.  
The ground beneath me is  
unsteady, disrupted from the  
abrupt loss of its tallest resident.  
  
As I lean in,   
I see that someone  
has made a go  
at Math.  
  
There are what I take to be   
year demarcations  
from the bark inward,  
etched with black Sharpie  
in a confident hand:  
  
2025  
2020  
2015  
2010  
2000  
1999  
1982  
1975  
1960  
1950  
1940  
1930  
...  
  
And if you are to believe  
the writer's counting  
prowess, then the  
heartwood would have   
grown in the 1920s;  
I suspect even earlier.  
  
And, although mid-walk  
with a partner,  
this sight steals my breath.  
I pause.   
I ponder.  
  
In the 1920s, when this  
East Coast equivalent   
of a giant sequoia  
was but a wee acorn,   
I think back to what   
I learned in history class.  
  
The Great Depression  
Flappers and bobs  
The Great Gatsby  
Votes for Women!  
Prohibition   
— and rum running —  
in the States.  
Josephine Baker   
shimmered in France.  
All my grandparents,  
born in the U.S.A.  
  
1930s and 1940s:  
The Second World War.  
Pearl Harbor.  
*Citizen Kane.*  
My future in-laws   
escaped Europe.  
The Holocaust.   
Enola Gay;   
Little Boy. Hiroshima.   
Fat Man. Nagasaki.  
Do these tree rings   
carry embedded evidence  
of man's destruction?  
  
The 1950s:  
Rosalind Franklin discovered  
a double helix in DNA.  
Emmett Till murdered.  
My parents and in-laws,   
all born throughout the East.  
My Great Uncle:   
shot down in   
Kangdong, Korea.  
My elders hang on hope,   
and fear.  
Six excruciating years  
before final confirmation  
of his death.  
One of 54,246   
U.S. servicemen, KIA.  
  
The 1960s:  
The Beatles  
Brown v Board of Education  
Kennedy, John F. Jr.  
in Dallas; Jackie's pink suit.  
My great-grandparents  
publish a book   
on nature poetry.  
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.  
stolen from us.  
Kennedy, Bobby Sr.  
next to die.  
Man lands on the Moon.  
Woodstock.  
No-fault divorce ruled legal.  
  
The 1970s:  
The Watergate scandal.  
Nixon — all of that.   
My aunts ironed their   
strawberry blond hair flat.  
My mom takes Poetry class  
instead of English Comp.  
My Dad crashed one,   
then two family Pintos.  
Women can get credit cards.  
My parents meet on the Quad.  
*Jaws* terrifies the world.  
Camp David Peace Accords.  
The Energy Crisis.  
Title IX.  
My parents hold hands  
and each say: "I do."  
  
The 1980s:  
A Hollywood actor   
becomes President.  
First female   
Supreme Court justice.  
Mount Saint Helens erupts.  
*E.T. —The Extraterrestrial.*  
I was born, and so.  
Now I can add memories.  
A new NASA era - the STS!  
I learn how to walk, then talk.  
I get a sister.  
The STS Challenger explodes.  
Reaganomics: Trickle-down.  
The Berlin Wall falls;  
all thanks to The Hoff,   
if you believe him.  
Billy Joel asserts:  
*We Didn't Start the Fire.*  
  
The 1990s, formative years:  
I survive second grade.  
I get a hot pink retainer  
which I throw out  
in the lunchroom.  
Clip Calvin and Hobbes  
in color from the Sunday *Post*.  
Trade slap bracelets and  
puffy stickers in the school yard.  
Bush Sr. throws up on  
Japanese Prime Minister,   
Kiichi Miyazawa.  
I forded a river;  
my oxen died.  
The Gulf War and   
Operation Desert Storm.  
I write "saddam hussein"   
in lowercase in my diary,   
my form of discontent.  
I hustle Girl Scout cookies.  
Snoop Doggy-Dog.  
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.  
Sleep-Away Summer Camp.  
I graduate eighth grade.  
Dawson's Creek.  
He tells us, under oath:  
"I Did Not Have Sexual Relations  
With That Woman!"  
And later:  
"It depends on   
what the definition of 'is' is."  
First braces with neon bands.  
My first kiss.  
My first cellular phone.  
Attend cheerleading camp.  
Attend Marine Biology camp.  
Party like it's nineteen nintey-nine.  
Endure the Y2K Crisis that wasn't.  
  
The 2000s are a blur:  
I attend College at 17.  
9/11 ends my childhood.  
The Terminator from Austria  
becomes California Governor.  
The Indian Ocean Tsunami.  
Like a walking statistic,  
one of those "Young Men with a   
Promising Future Path"  
body-checks me right off of mine.  
I start to recover, heal.  
My grandpa dies.  
Hurricane Katrina.  
Later, I am sure I find love.  
Graduate college.  
I get a j-o-b.  
I get married.  
*Yes We Can! Si Se Puede!*  
Survive the 2008 Recession.  
Buy a house with a VA Loan.  
Auto Bail-Out.  
House underwater.  
  
2010s blow into view:  
Arab Spring, revolt and renewal.  
New Job, in the city!  
I try and try and try  
and try again to get pregnant.  
Seal Team Six  
found and killed OSB.  
My grandma dies;  
Failed to give her a much-desired  
great-grandkid in time.  
(I get a puppy instead.)  
Finally, finally have a baby  
through science   
and health insurance.  
Name her after my Grandma.  
Learn things I can't unknow.  
Get divorced.  
Single Parent with Au Pairs.  
I find Real Love.  
My remaining grandparents die.  
Move in with my Love;  
a house with a garden of trees.  
"When You're a Star..."  
Locker room talk.   
"18 Million Cracks in the Ceiling."  
An extra from *Home Alone 2:* 
*Lost In New York* swears in.  
Pink pussy hats and   
wall to wall people and posters  
and kids and no cell service.  
Learn to meditate,   
deeeeeeep breath.  
Renew my faith.  
Get married again.   
(This time it sticks.)  
  
The 2020s are unhinged:  
COVID-19   
To Mask or Not to Mask?  
Lock-Down  
The Race for a Vaccine  
Boredom begets creativity.  
Tik-Tok dances  
Facebook Live with celebrities.  
Virtual school.  
The air clears; pollution drops.  
Are the rings of   
these years stronger, thicker?  
  
George Floyd  
Black Lives Matter  
January 6th insurrection  
Reels and podcasts and hot takes  
Generative AI  
Political turmoil  
Polarization  
Red versus Blue  
New Job.  
Get a kid through elementary.  
New Job.  
Fall Out Boy asserts,   
in homage:  
*We Didn't Start the Fire.*  
Raise a middle schooler.  
New Job.  
Spark creativity.  
New Job.  
NASA returns to the Moon.  
Copy, Moon Joy.  
  
I am standing here  
now in 2026,  
quivering on crumbling earth.  
I'm absorbing the magnitude  
of history at the foot  
of this dead tree  
that carries the weight  
of all those moments   
that I can summon —   
and a million billion more.  
  
This magnificent tree,   
this sleeping giant,  
downed by human buzz saws.  
It lies here, slain in the forest.  
  
This canopy king retains  
all the secrets  
and the explosions  
and the traumas   
and the joys  
and the wonders  
of all that came in its time.  
Perhaps it deserves  
a state funeral.  
  
Those tree rings  
almost uncountable  
they encircle   
and enshrine memories.  
This organism likely sprang   
from a pile of mule dung  
along the edge of the towpath.  
It survived:  
at least five cycles of   
slow-moving, vibrating  
red-eyed, green-bodied  
Brood X Magicicadas.  
The War of the World  
radio broadcast.  
The Bay of Pigs  
The rise and fall of AquaNet.  
Menudo and Ricky Martin.  
The LA Riots.  
The hole in the Ozone.  
El Nino  
and La Nina.  
El Derecho  
Snowmageddon  
Countless   
government shutdowns.  
The D.C. Earthquake   
that fractured   
both the Washington Monument   
and the Belltower of   
the National Cathedral.  
DOGE.  
They capture all that time.  
They quantify progress,  
holding truth   
in their eukaryotic cells.  
  
I slowly raise myself   
off my haunches.  
I put my phone back  
in my 'roo pouch.  
  
After a reverent moment  
my friend and I,  
we walk away   
down the path.  
  
All too soon,   
the silence  
blends into banter.  
  
We pick back up   
our routine conversations  
about men   
and kids and work.  
  
\= = =   
As the riddle *should* go:  
If a tree falls in the forest  
who carries its memory?   
Hopefully, all of us,  
in some small part.