The Way the Trees Are
Walking with my dog in our local park on a clear November morning, I was thinking about space: How much space we occupy; how we m ove through space; what kind of energy we leave in a space. Individual trees were visible on the Adelaide hills against a fantastically blue sky. An old-timer with a walking stick was the only other person in the park. He wore a pair of faded blue tracky pants and a checked jacket that seemed to hang on him like an animal fur. He lurched awkwardly from side to side through space, and was limping toward us when he stopped to pick something off the grass. ‘Good morning,’ I said. He held up a piece of bark and looked at me over the rim of his specs. ‘Good thing about this is it doesn’t bark,’ he said. I’m slow with jokes so it took me a few seconds to get it, and he didn’t wait. ‘You’ve got to get this stuff now,’ he said. It only drops once a year.’...