[Now that I'm out of the temperate zone, my opportunities for photographing Ailanthus have vanished. Fan of the tree? Send to me your thoughts, clippings and pictures of Ailanthus, the Ghetto Palm, the Tree of Heaven, and I will feature them at ghettopalm.bingregory.com.]

I have always been fascinated by the Ailanthus tree since I was a kid growing up in Dorchester, Massachusetts, a rough inner city section of Boston. I used to crush the leaves in my hands and smell its intoxicating aroma. I used to daydream about possible medicinal and or industrial uses for it. Perhaps deep in its chemical makeup there may be a cure for cancer and we would never know because of its notoriety.

The tree shares the same struggle as do the people it shares its environment with. The plant is ignored, maligned and seen as an ugly, overpopulating scourge to be eliminated by the dominant American society. It is referred to as “Ghetto Palm” and considered a weed. (see http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2006/05/ghetto-palms-in-hedge.html)

Despite the odds, the plant thrives against whatever is thrown at it where others die off. The Chinese call it the “Tree of Heaven” and the Europeans highly regard the plant so much so they plant it in their prized botanical gardens. (see http://books.google.com/books?id=J_0CAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155&dq=ailantus&source=web&ots=PRWq7IimJa&sig=PxurNVYhO47T5mWoztedhK67hn4) It is in this same vain that the most highly regarded and cherished aspects of American culture by the Europeans and the Chinese arise out of the peoples of inner city America—Hip Hop. Another man’s trash is another man’s gold.

Ailanthus should be the official shrub of the Hip Hop movement. It should be emblazoned on the hoodies, jackets, sneakers of rappers as a symbol of the common roots its shares with this mighty and noble plant.

[Thanks, Manny! Are you a fan of this tree? Send your thoughts, clippings and pictures of Ailanthus, the Ghetto Palm, the Tree of Heaven, to me and I will feature them here on the website. - bingregory]

If you question, you are elm beaten down by exhaust
or calloused feet
If you spring up in expectance, you are
the frond of Ailanthus
Absurd in its giving
Of shade to the dreamless street.

Who among you be Ailanthus,
The Witness-Who-Reaches-High?
Who among you be fair Ailanthus,
Tree-of-Heaven?

July 4, 1977 || Copyright © 1977, 2005 by David Newkirk. All rights reserved.

Poem reproduced from this location.

Part of the collection David Newkirk: Writings.

Dixie Babylon

by Cracker

We went down to the old part of town
By the stinking canal and the cotton mill
Under a ghetto palm with her bicycle shorts on
With a gesture she said to me

I really must confess
I’d like to get undressed with you
And though the thought had never really crossed my mind,
Oh, but that was a lie So we went along

We ran out under the turning leaves
And the fetid earth, it was damp and cool
Autumn’s feeble light on her salty neck
All innocence it was lost

I really must confess
I’m feeling quite distressed, my stars are always crossed
But I have always taken more than I have given back
And as a matter of fact, I’ve given nothing up

Ailanthus, goldenrod, scrapiron, what makes you flower?
What burns in the dump today?

Thick flames in a grey field, tended
By two men: one derelict ghost,
One clearly apter at nursing destruction,
Two priests in a grey field, tending the flames
Of stripped-off rockwool, split
Mattresses, a caved-in chickenhouse,
Mad Loy’s last stack of paintings, each a perfect black lozenge

Seen from a train, stopped
As by design, to bring us
Face to face with the flag of our true country:
Violet-yellow, black-violet,
Its heart sucked by slow fire
O my America
This then your desire?

by Adrienne Rich, 1964
From Collected Early Poems 1950-1970 (W.W. Norton)

Reproduced from the Jewish Culture News