A midrash on Genesis comments in passing on the kind of tree that produces “fruit good to eat”:

“They ask the fruitless trees (לאלני סרק), ‘Why are you so noisy?’ But the shade trees are loud, because they are not burdened with fruit” (Genesis Rabbah 16)

With the midrash, one is willing to think of human trees and wonder if truly the loudness of their activities is in inverse relationship to the quality or edibility of the fruit they produce. Apricot, plum, apple trees are quiet though not silent in the breeze when fully loaded with fruit. Our walnut tree was not particularly quiet when a strong wind kept blowing last Sunday and its foliage swished and glistened in the evening light. Still, poplars, aspens, or pines do make themselves heard over others… In La jolie rousse, Apollinaire expands this idea that “le bien fait peu de bruit” as: “Nous voulons explorer la bonté contrée énorme où tout se tait,” or: “We wish to explore kindness, huge land where all falls quiet.”  I hesitate to translate “bonté” as kindness, though “goodness” isn’t it either. Why? Our vocabulary itself—kindness, goodness, bonté—lacks the hard edge, the passion, one is more willing to associate with love or eros, as Plato via Socrates argues in the Symposium.  And yet I cannot conceive of kindness without this passion. Quiet perhaps to the outsider, but hard-bitten nonetheless and full of a great desire to be fruitful.  I think of this as I reminisce about Benjamin Kleinstein who died quietly on Sunday June 10 at age 91.