Race in the Woods

There's a race in the woods. Out beyond the big White Pine. Out where leaves and needles fall to the forest floor year after year, turning the yellow sand brown. There's a race going on. My grandfather once pointed it out to me: a small Maple sapling and two smaller Beeches growing by its side, the three of them sprinting for the sky.

Back then, the Maple tree was taller, reaching out its branches, spreading out its leaves, blocking the light filtering down from a gap in the canopy above. But years have passed, and fortunes have changed.

Beech leaves stay green longer. You can see them clearly in the woods right now. And a hard season many winters ago took its toll on the Maple tree, giving the Beeches the chance they had been waiting for. The tallest of the two now towers over the Maple, and even the smaller has left the Maple tree behind.

The race is really over, although there are many, many years yet to go.

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Half Mile Lake
Gowen, Michigan

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