"They watched me from the canopy like sprites and peered from behind the chokecherries in the undergrowth. I've always felt comforted by their gaze; the quaking aspen that lived outside my childhood home watched me grow up. I approached the trunk of an aspen that day, meeting the yellow-leaved giant eye-to-eye. Over time, this particular Populus tremuloides had shed one of its lower branches, leaving behind a perfect "eye" the size of my hand, complete with punk eyeliner, a gray iris and black pupil."
"There are half a dozen species of aspen around the world, and myths about them date back centuries. In the United Kingdom, the trees have been linked to other realms, their quaking leaves serving as a portal to "the land of Faerie." Their heart-shaped leaves, which shimmy like jazz hands, communicate with the Faerie world. Whenever I nap beneath an aspen, I receive bizarre messages from poplar nymphs."
A first-person walk through a Colorado aspen grove uses vivid sensory detail and personification to portray trees as watchful beings. White-barked aspens are described as quaking, sprite-like observers with heart-shaped leaves that tremble like 'jazz hands.' One tree bears a hand-sized 'eye' in its bark with a gray iris and punk eyeliner; nearby initials suggest lovers carving into living skin. Myths and folk beliefs connect aspens to the Faerie realm and poplar nymphs, and napping beneath an aspen yields encrypted Yeatsian messages: 'Monkshood! Mandrake! This Golden Look Will Make You Quake!' Autumnal scents and a passing runner deepen the scene.
Read at High Country News
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]