interspecies love

i sometimes talk about trees and plants as friends. if that makes sense to you, then it just does. and if it doesn’t, then it maybe never will. but i see this photo, and i think about winter walks in silent landscapes that fill me with a vast and enveloping sense of being alone. in places like that, i can look at the friendly red of a dogwood, or the patient elegance of a leaning birch tree, or the strangely summery green of a juniper, and i feel accompanied in almost the same way as if i had a friend walking beside me, and my loneliness is relieved.

paper birch bark, juniper, and red dogwood