I passed a big magnolia this morning in the cold air, every branch swept and draped and ended in perfect pink-hued blossoms, the most intricate candalabra, lit from the eastern horizon and aflame with delicate light.

Trees reveal their true colors when they shield us from the light of the sun. Dawn and dusk's horizon light filters through the shape of leaves and branches, making play with forms and shade. In the dawn all the hues burst forth a wild palette of gold and green and red.

Unless we stand beneath a tree and see the dancing light dappled, noon's harsh cadmium yellow strips the foliage of depth and shadow.

Trees stretch to the sky and into the earth, fan the air, split rocks, filling similar vertical columns of space as we do. Trunk and torso, knees and limbs. Crowns.

When I was a girl my family backpacked into the giant sequoia forest in the Sierra Nevada Mountains one summer. The wind picked up in the night, stirring through the dusty duff and roaring through the gaints around us. We heard the moaning, the creak and crack, and the sigh and groan that seemed to last throughout the deep dark night. We heard the high keening screech and then the resounding crackling rumbling thud like thunder as one of the giants fell and splintered to pieces. It was terrifying in the pitch black of wilderness far beneath the sky.


People appear as themselves when they forget about their self. At that point the light shines through, glimmering and bright and unexpected, a glimpse into the heart and soul, the separation of shadow and form. At these moments of brilliance and illumination we see the colors, the truths, the tender growth. We are not so different from trees; we grow our skin thicker every year for protection, and some even have thorns. But we also sometimes catch the light, and others see our beauty.

What if I fell in the wilderness? Would the trees hear?