SACROSANCT (THE HOLY BIRCHES)


It’s shaded on the valley ridge and the old birches have fallen across the one another like soldiers who still wear their bright white uniforms proudly. In the distance some bird calls and one would think the bird is large by the power and prowess of its sound. This voice echoes across the valley and then comes again and again. He or she is calling a friend, a brother, a lover, or possibly just warning someone of something. There is a part near the end were large deer cross, but they are incredibly fast and appear as shape shifters, as something more akin to visions, when they at seen at all. Up there, fewer insects appear because it is dryer and there are not a lot of places for them to reproduce. There are areas within the larger area where dragonflies stay, where butterflies glide, where grasshoppers seem to be the thing, where only a few ants roam, where snakes seem to gather and hunt and watch and be, and all in all, though all these environs intersect, there seems to be a place for everything. The top of the valley is a place of birch trees, and they grow tall and sometimes wide. When they fall over or are felled by storms, it is into the valley semi-darkness and darkness they travel and then sit and stay. Different stages of decomposition, but the white bark stays so incredibly long. One could think they are like in the stories of saints and sages for whom bodily decomposition took a long time.

The birches must be holy.

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