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BOWING OUT GRACEFULLY
Live long. Or die young from disease, bugs, fire, shifting stream beds, or the vagaries of Yellowstone’s poisonous, sulfur-laden hot springs. But death is not the end. Dead trees are essential elements in a flourishing ecosystem--and to this photographer’s muse. In the arid west, dead trees last for decades, giving plenty of time for appreciation. Out here, they say on average it takes twenty years just for a dead tree to fall over. I’ve watched one such tree behind my house for over 25 years now. Downed, cracked and broken for some time when I first saw it, it is still largely visually unchanged.
Mary Queen of Scots said “In my end is my beginning.” And so it is also with trees. Bark off, smooth dead wood develops a lustrous silver-gray patina accentuated by dark stains here and there. Exposed roots, betrayed by erosion from the same streams whose water they sought for life, dry to tangled webs that symbolize both the struggle and success of a life of clinging to the earth through storm and wind. Burned trees assume jagged silhouettes against bright skies, like negative images of the dark night and searing lightning that created the fire from which they emerged. Magnificent.
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