Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Written in Wood

An old douglas fir fell across the path where I walked today.  Someone had opened her as if she were a book, not to read her, but to clear the way for walking.  Her needles no longer milk the sun nor mix juices from soil to feed herself and make babies.  She no longer braces against wind.  But her wooden book lies open, and I take some time to read.


Every spring I grew a little taller and a little wider, her story begins.  I read it in the light-colored softer wood of her inner rings, wood put down when she was young.  But toward mid-summer I somehow knew hard times would come, and my tender springwood stopped its growth and effort went to making  summerwood, hard and strong against the coming wind. 


Her inner twenty-five rings, those young vivacious years, grew with moderate speed, not fast like a farm-planted tree, nor slow like one under shade of many elders.  She drew water with vigor, up from her roots and sent sugar back down, xylem and phloem, veins and arteries, tubes in her trunk which hardened into wood.


It was not logging that gave her room to grow, for the year was about 1850 when her tender bristle top emerged from soil and her first little branches felt the sun.  She grew up where ax and saw never rang in the woods and the word “timber” never echoed from a fallers’ voice.  Perhaps she germinated where an old one fell, an opening in old-growth forest where child-trees stand a chance.





During her next ten years, until age thirty-five, she grew faster, suggesting that since she was too short to feel the sun by her own height, that an older tree standing near her, fell, probably some giant to her south, allowing more sun to reach her hungry needles.  She grew at a fast healthy pace until she was ninety five, and then began to slow.  By now she was one of tall trees in the forest canopy, not dependent upon old trees dying to give her sun, but even with this advantage, she did not continue her fast growth.  I can’t say for sure why: maybe an insect infestation plagued her, or conk rot, maybe fire damaged her skin. 


Whatever hindered her life, it ended when she was 104.  Her rings once again show healthy growth until age 130 when she became ill for unknown causes.  At about age 160 she died.









 



If she had been taken by loggers, as this one was, instead of falling by natural causes, her stump might look like this after many years of rot.  Now she’s like a booster chair for young fir trees who germinated in her top.  They are perhaps her grandchildren, born from seed of her children.






If she had been hit by lightening, as perhaps this one was some hundred years ago, she might have weathered and gathered moss in artful patterns.  



 


Or if she were dead, but still standing, a woodpecker might be digging her rotted wood for insects.



7 comments:

  1. Beautiful story and the greens exquisite, evocative, lush. I love how the moss makes a canopy over everything, dresses the trees as if ceremonially after experience and for what they are to experience. The woodpecker with such a red ritual hat seems to have a ceremony of its own. There, continuous knocking as if in question. It reminds me of a silent answer from Here, as I walked from Arts Club at the Red Door, to home, by the long overgrown lotus pool one snowy egret stood on one leg and then the other, making reflections in silent answer.

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  2. Sharon,

    I enjoyed reading the story of the wood. The woods, moss, and bird in the photos are just gorgeous. Your narration is great. It compliments the photos.

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  3. Thanks Keiko and Kathabela, the trees thank you, the woodpecker too, Keola and Kapono thank you.

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  4. Okkkkkkkay as rashad would say!!!! And are you hearing Hawaiian melodies in the woodpecker's fretboard in the snow? Pretty soon you'll be singing K-k-k-katy, like my dad used to sing to me!

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  5. What a lovely tribute to a fine tree. I am so glad you are there to give witness to her existence. Thank you for writing a story of nature and the power of life. Liz

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  6. Thanks Liz, I was touched also after reading her book.

    Yes Kathabela, I knew Keola and Kapono when I lived in Hawaii, and maybe you also heard their slack-key music. Hawaii forest and Oregon forest look much alike. Though the species are much different, they both get a lot of rain.

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  7. You tell such wonderful stories, Sharon, and your photos are exquisite.
    Thank you for all of them.
    Stay warm and well.

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