I've been thinking about trees lately . . . how, in large and small ways, and wherever I live, they seem to have an outsized effect on my days. In Harmony that was no surprise. We lived on 40 acres of old-growth timber, mostly pines, firs, spruces, tamaracks, interspersed with smaller hardwoods--maples, cherry, poplar, ash, birch--and cedar along the streambed. Our acreage was just one small patch in the enormous stretch of woodland that cuts across northern New England, into New York, up into Canada . . . the Great North Woods, the forest king. Every time I cut anything from the garden, I had to pick pine needles out of it. Every spring I tore pine saplings out of the cultivated beds. If Tom needed to side the barn, he cut a tree for boards. We heated our house for more than two decades on culled trees, without doing any damage at all to the woods. The trees were our skyline, our fort, our weather. They surrounded us, and we were small.

Now I live in the city, but still, the trees have not ceded their power. Instead of mammoth white pines, we now have mammoth Norway maples. They loom dangerously over the houses . . . huge, beautiful, crowns of shade and green, and terrifying in a wind storm. Every time I cut anything from the garden, I pick out bits of maple flowers and maple seeds. Every spring I tear maple seedlings out of the cultivated beds. The trees are glorious and unstable. They surround us, and we are small.