Driving north on the highway yesterday in the early afternoon I saw two separate instances of trees which had turned from green to red. They weren’t large, more like big saplings amidst older and bigger trees lining the highway; but like young men falling early in battle, they showed what was to come. Soon all those forest stands will be nothing but skeletal limbs, naked. And then, if we all make it through the punitive season of winter, its chills if not exactly thrills, we’ll see it all pick up again next spring.
On the way home, coming up past the neighborhood elementary school, I saw a very tall, mature-looking school-girl walking home alone. And though she didn’t look like me, I was reminded of myself anyway. It had to do with her aura of isolation and aloneness. Emigration firmed and fastened the isolation around me, enisled me to a certain extent.