Friday Photo#5 ~ Private Property

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I couldn’t resist taking a photograph of this tree, slowly devouring the Private Property sign, when I encountered it on State Street in Teaneck, New Jersey. I had gone to Teaneck to see one of my favourite American singer-songwriters, Steve Forbert, who was performing at the Mexicali Blues Cafe at 1409, Queen Anne Road (201-833-0011‎).

This tree gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, nature was not on the retreat. What if instead, nature was on the attack? What if nature, in a million surreptitious ways was slowly claiming back its rightful place on the planet, and we were too blind to even notice. Well, after all, it wouldn’t be the first time that people where so preoccupied with their own petty greed and jealousies, that nature was able to exact some type of revenge for years of neglect and abuse.

Or maybe this was natures way of saying, Neither this tree or this planet will ever by your ‘private property’. It belongs to everyone.

Photograph: Private Property Tree, by Jim Lesses
Location: Teaneck, New Jersey, May 18, 2008.