Fallen Branches

Pretty much every weekend since the second week of December I have trekked out to Holden. In spite of its regularity, my eyes still gasp upon seeing the havoc Mother Nature wrought against that part of the state a month and a half ago. The trees… it’s nothing I think I’ve ever imagined – not even in contemplating what provoked the wrath of the Ents.

I grew up in the woods. When we lived in Holden, I spent every available hour of free time building my ‘fort’ in the parcel of woods between our yard and the WTAG compound. When we moved to Oakham, I had acres through which I could wander and console myself from teenage angst. Trees and the cool shade of their greenery have long been providers of comfort in my life. So it makes me cringe to see their agony when I go ‘west’ for my weekly visit.

The cleanup has been put aside until spring, which will hopefully come after the unrelenting snow and ice melt away to reveal the piles of broken branches and shed needles again. Dead branches that ripped from their bodies and stabbed themselves into the cold hard ground with their fall. So many leaked sap from their exposed insides… like blood or tears.

The branches are lost. Some may provide kindling for the next winter’s cold. But so many are toxic with their sticky blood, that is a danger to a chimney. But what of the bodies, stripped and torn, and exposed to the elements? Add to it the infestation of beetles, which rots these beautiful giants from the inside out… and one wonders if these trees are lost forever.

But nature is amazing and awe-inspiring in the miracle of persistence. Some trees are mortally wounded and will stand to die a slow death in the summer sun next year. But some will sprout new branches and find green leaves on the stronger limbs that remained. These new branches will twist and reach out to the sun in the new pockets of light, creating a different beauty of survival and rebirth.

There are new gaps through which the sun shines now… providing nourishment to plants and saplings that might not have survived under the shelter of the fallen branches but were supple enough to bend but not snap from the weight of the ice. Maybe those limbs had to fall away so they could grow.

I am curious to see what rebirth the spring brings… but I still ache for the branches that fell and cried.