Kristen Case

Being with Trees

Unwritable withness, being with trees empties out the grammar of which the writing self is made, with which it makes. I want to speak of the relief of being-with trees, but all I can say is that there is relief in the approach to such being, in thinking of being with trees. That is, I approach in thought the dissolution of coherent thought, the loss of a grammatical form that might speak of being-with trees. Being with trees is remarkably, in this way, like being with child, or like nursing an infant. There is a pleasure in this contraction and expansion, the diminishment of the sphere of speaking and the enlargement of the texture of air, the veinedness of leaves, the crossings of leaf and sky, rain-light, midrib, lamina, lobe, leaf, frond, blade, needle, bract.

 

 


 

“Being with Trees” first appeared in Wave Composition, Issue 6.