POEM · SUCCESSION AND DECAY
The tree came down sometime in spring. No one heard it. By September the leaves it carried are gone, but the trunk still crosses the woods at the height of my knee, too large to step over without touching it. The bark has opened along one side. Underneath, the wood is pale and scored with narrow galleries where beetles have passed. Rain has gathered in the hollow where a branch tore away. Three mosquitoes lift when I lean close. On the shaded side moss has begun— not everywhere, only where the bark holds enough water. A shelf fungus the color of old linen comes out near the base. Farther along, an acorn has lodged between trunk and earth. Its shell is split. A white root no thicker than thread has entered the leaves below. The stem rises the other way, bent around the wood before finding light. It has two leaves. Nothing about them resembles an oak yet except that they are. I sit on the trunk. It holds me. This surprises me, though I cannot say why. The tree is dead and still has weight enough to bear mine. An ant crosses my hand, then disappears into a seam in the bark. Above us the opening left by the fallen crown has filled with sky. Along its edges the standing trees have already begun to lean their leaves toward it. Next year the opening will be smaller. The moss will have gone farther. The little oak, if it lives, will put another ring around a center no eye will ever see again. I stand. A piece of bark comes away beneath my palm. What it covered is damp, soft enough now that when I press it my thumb leaves a mark.