There are all kinds of things to do and to see
if you go down to the woods at night.
But the strangest thing of all might be
The song sung by the third tree on the right.

It whispers of melancholy, aged and wise
Of experiences carried through time.
Words indiscernible but one might surmise
The language of trees is sublime.

When I was young, I spent the majority of my time alone. My closest non-human friends were an incredible swing, which I will recreate someday, and an arbutus tree, which is the tree I miss most, now that I don’t live next to the sea.
This tree was attached to a small cliff which overlooked the street I grew up on. It jutted out so that I could walk along the trunk and into the branches, where I would sit and read for hours. I could even jump from the edge of the cliff and grab the lower branch, and swing myself up to a higher branch. Nature’s uneven bars. The texture of the bark changed from the oils in my skin. It was as much my tree as I was its. I rarely think of trees as having gender, it’s too narrow for what they encompass.

I’ve been living in the prairies for a minute, and will likely do so for a minute longer. I am well enamoured of the big sky. For someone who grew up on the ocean, it’s as though the world has flipped and this broad vista of wind scattered white caps pulls me toward the horizon from above. I miss the big trees though, and the ever permanent scent of rot that lives in coastal forests. Nothing ever really seems to die there, there is a dynamic sense of decomposition everywhere. Here, lots of things die as it gets so damnably cold it can’t help but. But I’ve only just started to explore. Now that the season of the stupid hot has passed, it feels as though the world beckons once more.

The heat has given way to crisp mornings and a sky
that slowly bleeds the vibrancy of a vivid summer blue
The clouds are content to stick around instead of passing by
as the heavens shift toward a more subdued autumnal hue,
It encourages the relishing of bright and shiny days
to save them up as a solace in the colder months ahead.
I think that bears have it sorted, with their snuggly snoozy ways
Perhaps I’ll spend the next six months hibernating in my bed.