The Dogwood Also Rises

Avatar Author: stargazer1960 Feminist author and science educator. Midwest, middle-aged, growing midsection, but definitely NOT middle of the road. Read Bio

I love to stand on a path in the woodlands in early March and look closely. As I cast my gaze out at the barren trees and the verdant pines, I find the ghostly dogwood trees staring back.

They are dwarfed by the full-grown trees surrounding them. They thrived on dappled shadows of light that fed them through the growing season. Throughout the winter, when the limited sun stripped the other trees bare, these tiny creatures clung to their beige leaves. Even though the green of summer has left their complexion, they are still hungry.

The snows are gone now. The forest floor is a spongey mass of discarded needles, last year’s debris, and this year’s life waiting to emerge from a cold primordial soup. The ghost trees wait for their ressurection and, just before Easter, it arrives.

The dogwoods cling to their anemic foliage like a parasite clings to a dying host, but there is life coming. Soon the sun will bathe these miniatures with light enough to break their fast and the leaves will fall at last.

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Comments (6 so far!)

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  1. Avatar Robert Quick

    Excellent description and very true to the spirit of the challenge.

  2. Ahfl_icon THX 0477

    Lovely, careful, and nicely charactered description of what you see on a walk through the woods. Loved it.

  3. Avatar ElshaHawk (LoA)

    dogwood trees are a beautiful sight in spring, a sign that bulbs are sprouting and the hibernation is coming to an end. I get two scenes here though, the tree without blossoms and the tree with. I think the last paragraph almost need past tense, like when you said ‘clung’ when referring to the leaves in the leaves in the second paragraph. I know that breaks the rules of continuity, but it lets us know you meant the blossoms on the tree to be the scene.

  4. Avatar ElshaHawk (LoA)

    my fave line: The forest floor is a spongey mass of discarded needles, last year’s debris, and this year’s life waiting to emerge from a cold primordial soup. !

  5. Avatar stargazer1960

    Thanks, Elsha. Actually, the trees don’t have flowers right now, just last year’s leaves.
    They get flowers after last year’s leaves fall off, then the new leaves come out.

  6. Avatar ElshaHawk (LoA)

    i think i saw one the other day,a tiny one, but they aren’t out here either. not yet.

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