Though the kites had given me a boost, I was feeling a little sombre when I reached the copse. I'd met a friend who'd said he and his wife were looking at the poplars and said how they are a real indicator of climate change. I said that I thought they'd just come to the end of their life - but why I think that when I have seen some huge poplars I don't know. He replied, "It was wet enough up there for poplars when they planted them, but it's not any more."
Of course. These are the first two years I have been able to run this route throughout the winter. Before, there were months on end when it was a mud-bath.
And then I recall speaking to my tree once and her saying, "Too much fire."
She will not make it through another year. She just has a few sprouts and worse, I had my ear to her trunk, listening to all the dead branches rattle in the wind and I thought, "She sounds hollow." I looked down.
I couldn't work out what fungi they were. There were more and older ones under the brambles.
She is indeed hollowing out.
So, I went to sit with the old oak and I was thinking about hollowness. And it struck me how we humans walk around in a hollow lifeless bubble. The animals and birds flee us, they keep their distance. We walk as though with a force-field around us that repels all, that allows no one in. The only life inside comes through our devices.
I started to cry at how everything flees us and I sensed at my back the tree's generosity. This oak, this healthy oak, supporting me. I felt that the tree knew my intentions were good and I felt some solace.
From there, I walked to the younger oak and as I did, I flushed out a hare. It ran, at an eighth of its speed, and I felt sorry to have disturbed it, but happy to have seen it - and to have seen its form. Right there, by my young out. It was shaped perfectly as the cast of the underside of a hare. I laid my hand in the space and felt warmth and life and the magic of hidden creatures.
This looks more like a scared rabbit. But I like it nonetheless.
Love the painting of Hare with Ears Down - including the something in the air dit dots of paint here and there. Would ears in that position help Hare to be not seen? Sobering how climate change is altering the landscape and your poplar tree may be part of this change. And the change includes those fungi. Wonderful how you see and be with the spot where Hare was resting.