Above and Below

I have always been very connected to trees. I feel in some way that they have old souls. They stand so tall that we often forget to look all the way up to the top. Actually it bothers my neck and I'm afraid I'll fall over backwards, so lying down on my back helps. I love to spend time there, especially with a grandchild tucked under my wing, looking for birds and blue bits of sky through the canopy of leaves. The top of trees is a far away place where we seldom go, so its nice to carve out a bit of "lying in the grass" time.

But when I saw those trees piled on top of each other, something piled up in me too. All those old souls had given up. They were beaten down, confused and crumpled every which way. They had lost their way. Their roots were torn from the earth and exposed to the light of day. An upturned wall of hidden resources that had nourished a tree for so many long years. A view I wish I did not have to witness. Those roots were meant to be hidden, growing under my feet, not left vulnerable to the world.

The trunks of the trees were so enormous I couldn't climb over them. When I tried I was reminded of the immense weight of them. The immovable mass of tree, the core of it all.

It's one thing to see two or three fallen trees in the woods, I see them in the Adirondack Mountains on my hikes. But this is different, so other worldly, so violent, so sad. 

Around forty trees in a two acre area are down.

And they all fell around a woman who lived in her house, who is about the same age as those trees. They all weathered the storm together. She survived, the trees did not. Their shared vista has changed forever. The trees will eventually be sawed and chopped and shredded and burned and eventually forgotten. But the old woman in the house will not forget them. They were part of her world, they held her memories, sheltered her family, protected and nourished the birds she fed. They watched over the little house on the hill.

I never knew how much I loved those trees until I lost them.