Li : Brancha

Ask a North Georgian what’s good about winter, and they will eventually get around to rhapsodizing about how the bare trees look. The skeletal branches seem to reach right into the marrow of our own bones. Patterns in nature speak the resounding, wordless truth: All connects. The beech tree branches, Feb. 21 All follow urges [...]

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Act of Faith

“I’m going to plant that red buckeye seed today,” I told Tom this morning. Caught in my voice was that thin blade of iron resolution that’s usually reserved for tasks like sweeping mounds of wet leaves off the decks. “That’s exciting!” he said. Mmm. I had put it off for two days – my mentor [...]

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Ownership

Bark of an American beech along Long Swamp Creek, Pickens County, Georgia Already I’m calling it “my tree.” As though I could own it. As though anyone could really own a tree, much less one that’s on public land. It’s a human conceit: that, because we have the legal right to commit an act upon [...]

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the great lie

the great lie : that everything dies as any walk with eyes knows more than this death may sleep, sleep may silence, cold compares to bare skin, but the forest drifts in winter boats amid no darkness deep enough to drown a napping seed.

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