Thursday, October 19, 2023

Fallen trees aren't really dead

How many years?
London, ON
October 2023
This photo originally shared on Instagram


All life has its own texture, even after it ends.

Indeed, the story of this fallen tree didn’t stop after the chainsaw that brought it down to the forest floor was powered off. In many respects, its story was only beginning to be told.

I’m just a simple human being, so I’m hardly qualified to talk about the meaning of a tree’s life. Or of any life, for that matter.

But standing beside this decaying giant, I wondered about all the other visitors to this valley who had enjoyed its shade over the years, who listened to the song of its leaves blowing in the wind, or who brought a particularly colourful example home when they finally fell to earth.

Even if they weren’t acutely conscious of it at the time, their lives were touched in some remarkably subtle way by this tree.

Trees, squirrels, people, whatever or whoever. We all brush up against each other as we wander through the forest, and we all leave some kind of impact as we do.

So before I leave this scene behind, I run my fingertips along the textured rings, silently marking off the years and thinking about the passage of time. Maybe it’s just a dead tree to some, but it still has stories to tell, and lives to touch.

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Related:
A tree meets its end, September 2016
New beginnings, July 2009
Bark, cubed, November 2006

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