In the course of researching dogwood trees, beloved poet and essayist
Christopher Merrill realized that a number of formative moments in his
life had some connection to the tree named--according to one
writer--because its fruit was not fit for a dog. As he approached his
sixtieth birthday, Merrill began to compose a self-portrait alongside
this tree whose lifespan is comparable to a human's and that, from an
early age, he's regarded as a talisman.
Dogwoods have never been far from Merrill's view at significant moments
throughout his life, helping to shape his understanding of place in the
great chain of being; entwined in his experience is the conviction that
our relationship to the natural world is central to our walk in the sun.
The feeling of a connection to nature has become more acute as his life
has taken him to distant corners of the earth, often to war zones where
he has witnessed not only humankind's propensity for violence and evil
but also the enduring power of connections that can be forged across
languages, borders, and politics. Dogwoods teach us persistence humility
and wonder.
Self-Portrait with Dogwood is no ordinary memoir, but rather the
work of a traveler who has crisscrossed the country and the globe in
search of ways to make sense of his time here. Merrill provides new ways
of thinking about personal history, the environment, politics, faith,
and the power of the written word. In his descriptions of places far and
near, many outside of the average American's purview--a besieged city in
Bosnia, a hidden path in a Taiwanese park, Tolstoy's country house in
Russia, a castle in Slovakia, a blossoming dogwood at daybreak in
Seattle--the reader's understanding of the world will flourish as well.
