Tree Rapture Clearcut

Tree Rapture Clearcut
That summer I was off the mountain too long. Coming home, the forest view I knew around the curve had been clearcut. Acres and acres cut down. I imagined a “rapture” for all the tree lives lost. Heavenly beings returning, floating to their source in rapture. Is all life sacred?

Firefly Oak

Firefly Oak
This is one of the older oaks left in downtown Boone. We stood three our family and stretched our arms around her and still could not reach each others finger tips. We would sit on the porch summer nights and watch the light show. I hung a tire swing from the lowest branch. Emily would swing and spin and sing “Swing High, Swing High”.

Spring Screams Green

Spring Screams Green
The hay is green, the grass is green, the field is green, the pines are green. The field is mowed and the timbering took these pines.
Now the Christmas trees are blue in spring, not green.

Night Trail Walk

Night Trail Walk
Birches hold their leaves late, long into the winter. The tall ones blow off, but down on the ground, scrub birch leaves rustle in gentle winds offering the only sound in the moonlight.

Night Walk Curved Trail

Night Walk Curved Trail
Nothing but trees reach out this frozen night. Still and quiet they reveal their winter strength in creaks and cracks popping cold and brittle.

Pine Road

Pine Road
Seems like this road belongs here among these trees. But before the road was here, there were pines and cherry and oaks in the roadway not just shadows of tree life.

Light Dissolves Trees

Light Dissolves Trees
Big trees capture the light with uplifting arms.
Trees and limbs and leaves are the color of the season. They grow to it.

Light glows throughout big trees.

Pine Holler

Pine Holler

Even in winter, the pines would hold refuge for wildlife. Tracks out to the straw and back into the shadow refreshed each night. Now, there are Christmas trees where there was always habitat and home.

Granny Bell Tree

Granny Bell Tree
I lost my Gramma, Annie Belle. She was 91. I returned home and could not understand. When I got to the top of the mountain, the sun was radiating through the pines. Pulsing a light of forgiveness. I understood what Granny Bell knew.

Landmark Maple

Landmark Maple
It’s on the maps, the cemetery is marked. Parkway worked it out, kept it in the NFS domain. The huge maple can be seen across the Deep Gap, I bet it is 150 years old. I collected rubbings from the scratched field stones. Greenes, Tripletts, Watsons, and D. J. T. Dec. 23, 1861.

Before the Timbering

Before the Timbering
This ridge had thick forest. Deer herds sheltered here for years, centuries, forever. The parkway was built along their ancient trails. I counted 47 one morning before they vanished into the forest. Yearlings jumping over each other chasing in circles. Young bucks, weaning does, a fine big buck standing at the edge of the pines watching his harem survive. Christmas trees took down the forest, hunters and poachers took out the deer.

Three Peach Trees

Three Peach Trees
Peach trees in the mountains are unusual. These were old trees, in town, where there was once a farm in downtown Boone. Now there is a house and a rental apartment growing in the pasture and peaches are flown in from Argentina.

March Moon Bamboo Valley

March Moon Bamboo Valley

Snow on the ground in March. The night so cold the greens look blue and the only warmth in the crescent bowl of the moon and Gillian Welch singing on the radio. Now there is a development which has taken these trees and valley view. The crescent moon returns each March to witness the loss to the valley.

Pops Winter Walk

Pop’s Winter Walk
It was only a few years ago. Pop grew up in the piedmont coastal region and had never walked in deep snow in the forest. We were quiet except for the crunch of the snow as we climbed the old logging trail. We went pretty far together, Pop and I. For him it was the first time. I never guessed it would be the last time too.