Once called the Garden City, now laughingly referred to as the Garbage City, Georgetown was known for it’s tree-lined Avenues and streets, and the tree-lined canals and trenches that divided the wards of the city and provided drainage for a city that was built upon land reclaimed from the ocean, and sits six feet below sea-level.

Today many of those drainage canals have been filled in for pedestrian walkways (most notably those running north-south such as along High Street, Carmichael Street, Waterloo Street and Camp Street).   Many of the trees that lined the avenues, streets and canals have died (or been cut down) and have not been replaced.  For many of us, we still see the trees that line our streets as being numerous, but this was a much more verdant city, we see it in the old photos and paintings.

Some of the older trees remain and provide some shelter from the tropical sun that bathes our city daily, some are even large enough to help provide shelter from the sudden shower of rain that cools the land and washes away the surface dirt that blankets the city, mainly from our own daily activities.

Walking down the Avenues that are still lined with these sentinels, I often look up at the canopy of lace-like branches and leaves that provide a respite from the midday sun and often ponder on what might make a good composition.  I often take photos, but they just as often fail to live up to the ideals that reside in my mind’s eye.

Here’s a simplistic version that I favoured among the many that I took 🙂

Lacy Leaves

Leaves and branches adorn the sky
An organic filigree
Earthen wrought and weather tempered
It’s not just a tree.

Intertwined and interlocking
like a spider’s gossamer
A lacy parasol that once was
the city’s glamour.

Click on the photo to see it in the Gallery.