The Wreck of Trees: A Work in Progress

I am writing a new work of fiction that takes place on the North Coast of Oregon. The Mail Lady’s Confession is a journey into old-growth forest, to a world beyond the edge of the Pacific Ocean, where grief, compassion, and joy are interwoven and hidden in the rings on the trunks of old trees. I am trying to understand the story that is beginning to unfold. So I trod the earth in search of trees. The trees are not as lush as they used to be. There are many ways to kill trees. Drought. Higher temperatures. Fire. Disease. Trees fall through no fault of their own. Trees fall through no fault of anyone. Trees fall through no fault of anything. Yet, the trees know when they’ve been murdered. Murder might be the worst way to kill a tree. Murder is intentional, absolute, without mercy. All the woods echo of snapping twigs, the hiss of sawdust, the crashing groan of death. Trees weep for their kin, bludgeoned and cut, then stacked onto logging trucks. Trees talk to each other, to both the living and the dead. They talk to me as I walk among them, along a blaze of mulch, nettles and needles, under a pallid lemon drop of sun. Their trunks topple, lopsidedly locking in embrace, but they are so sure of themselves, as am I. Not all stumps are made of wood. Stumps are sinew, bramble, skeletal remains. I do not know where the woods begin. I do not know where the woods end. I cannot touch the circle of round, smooth stones that mark the dead. I alone have been formed from fallen trees. Trees are old people who have lost their limbs, barely severed from ancient hearts. When the lightning comes, it will cover the earth.