I’ve walked in these hemlocks and white pines often. I love getting lost among
their cylinders and angles, bending this way and that – still getting caught on
branches. All the while, I inhale deeply, getting as much of that resinous air into
my lungs and nose and I can – feeling the tingle of it as it makes its way deep into
my esophagus. Somehow today they seemed different – I think it is the snow.
The contrast of the dark of the branches covered by and against the crystalline
white of the newly fallen snow was intoxicating. Everything became an abstraction
for that moment, and then I was back to the base tenor of the wind in the trees,
scattering the accumulation of snow – to make it look like so many veils floating to
earth from some tall cliff or tower. Trying to move through this copse on feet is
yoga, on skiis it’s dangerous.
I got back home and went into the old picture box we have of the farm. Where
I just was used to be the carriage road heading up to Whately. There were no trees
there then. The photo dates to the twenties. It’s hard to reconcile the density
of trees in that place now. One would never know that there ever was an absence
of trees around here. But listening and understanding signs and names reveals the
story of this valley – Potash Brook, for the camps that came here after the French
and Indian War and burned the big, beautiful trees to make ash for soap. Or, that
the area is also called Screwsville, for the wooden screw factory that once was
here. The story of this land is dense with memory and stories of all kinds
