Poisoned Hemlock
"We walk this land every day; but more often than not, it is in the pauses that I've come to know these hills best. This morning, sitting under the dying eastern hemlocks where the creek gorge narrows, I struggled to accept the passing of these trees, this species, forever. I'm grieved by the sight of the few that remain barely alive, gray and gaunt, with boney arms uplifted frozen in a final unanswered prayer. Tiny bracket fungi have already begun to colonize crevices in the listless bark, a step ahead of death."
This is truly a "tragedy in the making". I've mentioned this forest disaster a few times here in Fragments over the past year. A few of you understand, most folks do not. Could not. If you don't live among them, they are merely anonymous trees. When you see them out your window every day, they are neighbors. Friends. And they are dying in their boots, standing drained of their sap-blood, anemic and losing whatever it is that a plant knows as consciousness. Soon they will have no life left.
A particularly well-told eulogy is told by Elizabeth Hunter in this piece called "Coming Soon to a Hemlock Near You".
Elizabeth will be leading the Nature Writing workshop I am attending next week at the Campbell Folk School. We have exchanged several emails and I feel certain she and I will share some sad conversation about the passing of the hemlocks. But mostly, I look forward to infectious enthusiasms and passions and exuberance among my "classmates" in the beauties and wonders that survive in these magnificent forests we call home. I expect to be among kindred spirits for a whole week, and I can't tell you how affirming it will be to find I'm not alone in my eccentricities! The Folk School week may be the next best thing to having my Fragments Friends come down for a week-end camp out on the creek! Hmmmm. Now there's an idea!
Comments
First the Chesnuts now the Hemlocks. I remember being on a survey crew and my boss just going nuts after we surveyed a piece a land with beautiful hemlocks. He then told me how they were dying out. I spent some time in a hemlock thicket camping in the rain without a tent. I am almost scared to return to Ramsese Draft for fear they are dying. Out in Huddleston where Jessica lives there are still a few healthy ones in the woods and hillsides. I want to trust nature and say she has suffered worse she will recover. I wonder how much longer we can count on the resilency of nature. How much have we lost. Not a list of plants, animals, birds, insects, and hard to identify things but our connection to the land. I am looking out the window now thinking do I know what that tree is? Well, some kind of oak. Pretty yellow against the shiny surface of the pond.
Posted by: Seth | October 31, 2003 9:11 AM
Nice way of putting it, Seth. And Fred, don't think there aren't a few of us that noticed your very subtle mention of an activity near the creek that shall remain nameless but, as I said, not unnoticed.
Posted by: travelertrish | October 31, 2003 3:48 PM
Trish,
We're already loading a trailer with ATVs in preparation for the unnamed activity.
That creek area will look like Yellowstone in July.
JUST KIDDING, Fred... Fred? :)
Posted by: David | November 1, 2003 4:49 AM