In the birdsong of sunlight, campanile spires and leafless tall trees acquire white-gold auras.

I recall myths involving trees. Anansi, trickster-god spider, descends a silver thread within the forest, with rain and stories for his children. Odin hangs from evergreen Yggdrasil, the proto-Christ sacrificed to himself so as to attain wisdom. Beguiling wood spirits emerge only in moonlight, to inspire wonder, lust, love, disappointment--also a kind of knowledge.

Ash, yew, baobab, lotus, fig, oak, ceiba--others?--these trees were rendered sacred by the stories told under or about them, by the story as ritual, the mediation between the human and nature. In certain cultures, the world tree--or tree of life, or knowledge--linked heaven, earth, and underworld; perhaps a primordial memory of the lofty heights from which our earliest ascendants alighted; perhaps an arboreal model for the Milky Way. From the sun, the earth, the stars, the first stories were knitted.

As dusk approaches, the landscape turns blue, dispelling the reverie conjured by light's work.

<<