Life's a Beech

A walk through the winter woods reveals them with ease.
The beech trees, Fagus grandifolia, whose plain and smooth gray bark sets them apart with an elegance most others lack, furrowed and scaled. So vulnerable to those wanting to leave their mark upon them for the ages.
The sweetest leggy one, like the unblemished face of a slender, young girl, freckles dotting the bridge of her nose.

American Beech, Fagus grandifolia

Yet holding last year’s leaves, now faded and lightly golden, a sheer paper rustling with each breeze though these woods.
I love the beech trees.

Beech drops, Epifagus virginiana

Beneath them, barely seen against the russet tones of sugar maple, tiny Beech drops, Epifagus virginiana, grow, literally, "upon the beech."
With no leaves and no green coloring, living off the roots below as a parasitic plant.
For them, indeed, “Life’s a Beech.”

Snowdrops

Winter Walk, January 2009

This time, walking slowly,
though the path may be the same,
the walk a different one.

Winter Walk, January 2009

Mild temperatures, a far cry from the bitter cold just weeks ago that hurried me along these trails, tears running down my face, wet and warm over cheeks aching with the cold.

South-facing bank free of snow, January 2009

To find the place that caught the southern rays, even on that bitter day, free of the lightest covering of snow, beside the whitened path I had briskly walked, leading deeper into the brown woods.
Hoping that, today, the warmth on that bank would be just enough to coax the first flowers forward.

Steps down to Avey's Run, February 2009

The walkers on this day are many.
Quickly passing, some jogging—they bound up the bare wooden steps and race for home. Surely, the weeks of ice and windstorms have left them, too, starved of this outdoor playground.

Canada Geese on Powel Crosley Lake

From the edge of the lake, pairs of geese, swimming circles on the barely rippled surface, honk noisily at each walker’s passing. And ducks cluster and feed, tails up, in the shallow water.

American Beech leaves, Fagus grandifolia

Barely a breeze rustles the only leaves still clinging, faithfully, to their horizontal, slender branches—a beech. While the tall silver-gray forms beyond reach to blue and the lake glistens in afternoon sun.
I sat for a while beneath them here, and felt what sunshine they must feel--
on the first bright days like this.
Days to walk slowly and sit beside snowdrops.

First Snowdrops of Spring,
Galanthus sp.