At the edge of the wood, this Birch still stands. But in the underbrush nearby lies the decaying trunk of another, fallen a few years past. The old Birch is little more than a memory now; a ghost, fading back into the earth from which it grew.



This has been a hard year for trees all around. First the heavy snows of Winter weighted boughs and cracked trunks. Then the endless rains of Spring and Summer undermined roots, leaving trees to topple, torn from the soggy soil by gale-force winds. The damage, along with losses to disease, opens up the canopy, releasing saplings from shaded suppression. Even so, it takes years to fill the gaps. And more trees fall in the meantime. Even as it regenerates, the forest seems to recede, for trees of size are never replaced as fast as they are lost.



Unnatural, if not supernatural, the tree in question here is a European White Birch, linked to the spirits of the dead in the lore of the Old World, and favored by horticulturists in the New. For us, the pallid bark also serves as a spectral reminder of our distant heritage, imposed upon an unsuspecting continent like a Halloween prank of global dimension.