Bolin Creek Clear Cut

I bent down on my hands and knees, put my nose to the stump, and took the last thing the tree could give me: the scent of live, fresh wood, it’s dying breath. Part of me wondered at the morbidity of the scene, the chainsaw carnage, the massacre of a mature forest community. "Here I am romping in sap blood and drinking the smell of rotting flesh," I said. All the same, I had to understand the extent of the damage.

Years ago, I walked into this same stony woods alone. I was young, yearning for forest solitude, wanting to explore my new home. By a vernal stream in a little fold of the land, I harvest yellow poplar bark and made a basket. A wild hare hopped along the stream.

The moon was up early, waxing gibbous, chasing the Sun, which lay on the western horizon. The sky was a perfect Carolina Blue dome, unbroken by clouds. Benji and I drifted our separate ways in the cut. Soft mud swallowed my boots.

Dusk descended as I regressed. The world was shadow. I found my way in fits, zigzagging over the path. The feeling of lostness made my heart race.