Beech Tree by a Stream
Fifty feet in the air, the broad trunk bends slowly back to vertical, its canopy striving for the sun.
The shape of a living thing is defined by what it clings to to survive.
Living things grab ahold; they wrap themselves around whatever support they find and they just hang on. They grow into their supports. A lifetime spent clinging doesn’t just support a life. It becomes the shape a life.
The largest tree I saw on my hike on Marcom trail was a leaning beech, perhaps 20 meters from the running stream at the bottom of a ravine. At more than 4 feed across, this behemoth has watched over the ebb and flow of that run for around 300 years. 300 years…1718. That tree was born when Ben Franklin was just a young man. That tree has watched over the birth of our nation and every proud or humiliating moment we have passed, with, I guess, disinterest. Moss and lichens cling to its north facing bark as it stretches to rise above the canopy, a whole ecosystem depends on the tree’s shade, its bark, its foliage, its stature. The tree is old. It looks old; it FEELS old, but also reliable, static, solid, and grounded, but not invulnerable. It leans. Its roots cling to the soft sand of the riverbank, slowly losing an ages-long battle to hold the massive greenery of its umbrella upright. Fifty feet in the air, the broad trunk bends slowly back to vertical, its canopy striving for the sun.
Unused Steps
(or, an attempt to channel Robert Frost)
In the woods
rest eight stone steps
rising to a trellis.
Framing the ascent,
A crumbling, unmortared stone wall curves right
to a landing.
Green ivy spills over the wall,
Mingling with moss that highlights
Recesses between gray and untidy stones.
Rusty red treads have not been preserved
With care across the years.
Four steps up, a landing is adorned with a slatted wooden bench
That has seen better days.
Four further stairs
Rise straight to the vined arch.
Sun-baked strips of white paint curl,
Revealing the weathered gray grain of the wood beneath.
Through the ivy tangles and wildflowers curtain,
I can just make out a window set in a clean white wall beyond.
The encroaching forest obscures my view.
A table lamp shines through the sheer nylon curtain.