One of the best times to imagine the spirit of a special tree is on a cold and gray winter’s day, when the sun is only a slight brightness within a dingy sky. Here, on such a day last week, we’re looking through the crown of a local crabapple tree that reportedly is over 100 years old.
We can sense the strength it took for her to stand and grow in one place for so long – so many spring rains and blossom births; summer climbing children and drilling insects; fall leaf-turnings and lettings go; winter winds and icings and broken branches. She bends and ducks and gnarls her way through a tough, solitary life. We like to imagine that her many twists are where she once laughed or sighed or cried to herself. (Brooklin, Maine)