Three days before the storm that brought a lot of heavy wet snow I had taken a photo of the magnificent birch tree that grew in my garden, against a bright cerulean winter sky. I sent it off to a friend in California and she replied with a palm tree backed by the same blue. Two stately beings on either side of the continent. And then the storm. The weight of waterlogged snow took down trees and branches and knocked out the power system. Saturday morning I woke up in the dark, which is normal for an early riser, but flipping the light switch didn’t illuminate anything. A flashlight shone outside showed a scene of disaster with branches strew about and trees and shrubs weighed down and frozen into the snow.
With the rising sun patches of blue sky appeared. As I looked out the kitchen window I noticed that my favorite birch tree was arced from the edge of the road, across the stone wall, and into the garden at an angle that was odd. I went out to try to free the top from the iced up snow to no avail, then walked out to the road and discovered its roots torn from the ground.
When I moved here in 1974 that tree must have been a sapling, a naturally sown native that I didn’t even notice. Over the years it grew, a single straight trunk with exquisite smooth, chalky white bark. From the kitchen window it was a focal point and when returning from a walk it was a beacon to home. A white birch, a paper birch, a native tree like so many others, but one I favored. It had a majesty as its trunk stretched upward, and was then topped with intertwined branches.
Now I wait for a thaw so that I can deal with this fallen creature, a time to cut it into pieces that will fit into the woodstove. It will help to heat the house next winter. The ashes will be strewn onto the garden to sweeten the soil. It’s all part of the cosmic cycle. Besides it was only a tree and there are other birches in the garden. In fact most of the plants and trees around us are native, naturally planted, gifts from the wild. The fallen birch was a singular beauty, a wilding that gave much visual pleasure. I mourn its loss.
January 2023
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