December Landscape: Bark

Now the the leaves have dropped and the flowers have died (except for that beautiful rose), what's left?


The bark of the river birch sheds like a stripper. Up and down its lanky trunk, it produces a flaky parchment that you can actually write on--and roll into a scroll. It's not hard to imagine the writings of ancient people.


This cherry tree is bleeding. A fungus might have attacked it, though it's probably suffering from the concrete pour that invaded its space earlier this year. A hardy tree, it will survive. The squirrels and birds love its cherries. We do, too, with plenty of sugar.


Crepe myrtle bark is often smooth. Here it reminds me of the comment a neighbor made 22 years ago when she peered inside my daughter's stroller and said--in a deep, southern drawl--"I just love bald-headed babies."


Is it me, or do these crepe myrtle branches look like the back side of a human body turned upside-down? A blotchy human body at that. Skin and bark, bark and skin--we're more closely related than I thought.


We end, of course, with the bark of the oak, our country's national tree. Not particularly interesting, as the others are, but rather ordinary. And gray. Like so many of us, and like how we feel as winter sets in.