(written while sitting in the Western NC forest in front of a beautiful horizontal oak)

By: Carla Ramsdell (a physicists and tree hugger)

Thank you for your life.

There’s so much magic in the growth of your trunk and branches, roots and leaves.

Imagining you as a tiny acorn and then the slightest root shoot and sprout … that first photosynthesizing, energy-converting leaf and then … off you were!

How long ago was that?

How many critters perched or scurried upon you?

How many frigid nights did you spend strong against the winter winds?

How many springs did you smile as only a tree can smile?  Excitedly unfurling those first bright green lobed leaves.

How many summers did your leaves wave with a passing breeze, giving movement to the mountain I see through my window?

And then in a moment your connection to the life-giving earth was all but gone. This space permanently altered as you rest with so many of your companions, all felled on the same day – so much entropy. The work of thousands of arborists in the blink of an eye.

Your anchoring roots exposed to dirt slowly rinsed off with each rain.

I rest my hand on your rough and majestic bark – I am able to reach parts of your previously unreachable. You are massive and complex and beautiful.

What now?

What will fill your forest void?

I imagine some of your neighbors who remain vertical are sad to lose your example, your communication via mycelium, your break from the wind.

And yet without your competing canopy, some will be able to thrive with more incident photons upon their leaves. They will carry on for you.

How long will you rest horizontally? Deep in the forest and propped by other trees and rocks you are preserved. While once a ladder to the sky, you are now a bridge across the forest. You may no longer photosynthesize, but you will continue to store carbon and be home to so much life, creating new nooks and crannies for safety and rest, borrowing and crawling.

So, again, Thank you! I will continue to admire you along with the thousands of others who fell from Helene.

Rest well …