August 21, 2009. My morning walking path takes me past a stand of trees for which I have no name. Every day I ask as I pass, “What are you?” and I receive no response, just the quiet calm of a small grove. I am attracted to the deep fissures in the bark and how it merges and separates to form shapes like waves running up and down the trunk. Half of these trees are now destroyed, a casualty of Tuesday’s storm. This beauty, now lying on the ground, will disappear into a pile of wood chips, its singular glory lost to all of us.
