The Matriarch of Pinedrop

I am the Matriarch of Pinedrop and my story is nearly over.

They came in the spring; carrying rattling, hissing cans that left a cold streak of bright orange across my bark. I knew what that mark meant. I’d seen it before on the trunks of my brothers and sisters. It meant the end was near.

For 318 years, I’ve stood rooted in this earth. Over the centuries, I’d weathered insect and fungal infestations, fires that swept through and consumed vast swaths of my kin, storms that nearly tore my roots from the soil. I survived them all.

But the forward march of man is something no one can prevent.

The centuries have not passed in silence. My foliage has cooled the brows of children at play, lovers carved their names into my bark as they made their promises to each other, birds built their nests in my branches, year after year, and sang their young into the world.

There has been grief along with the joy. Mothers have wept at my roots, their tears sinking into my soil. I’ve given support to hunters who leaned on me to regain energy. I have listened to laughter, arguments, confessions, all carried away on the wind blowing through my leaves.

These memories live within me, ring upon ring, pressed deep into my heartwood. They are what makes this ending feel so heavy. For when I fall, who will remember them?

Of the countless acorns I have dropped over the centuries, only one grew tall enough to stand beside me. The squirrels, chipmunks, and birds carried away most. Others sprouted eagerly in spring only to wither when the summer heat bore down, or when the canopy above denied them light. This is the way of a tree’s bloodline—many beginnings, few survivals.

But this one was different. It found its place in the clearing right at the edge of the shade provided by my crown, where sunlight lingered longer and the soil was rich in nutrients not all used up by me. I felt its first fragile roots brush against mine, tentative, searching. I gave what I could, as all mothers do, sheltering its tender shoot from the fiercest winds and sharing the water in our soil.

I watched as it stretched taller with each passing season, her bark darkening and limbs reaching upward with an eagerness I remember all too well from my youth. Her leaves were smaller than mine, the trunk more slender, but I saw the strength she had. For the first time in over a century, I believed I would not stand alone. There would be another oak to bear witness with me, another voice to share the song of the forest.

Birds came to nest in her boughs, young foxes played in its shade, and deer sought the tender new leaves every spring to replace the nutrients they lost during the long winter. I swayed in pride when the winds tore at us both, seeing how it bent but didn’t break. Each year, both our trunks thickened, and I imagined us aging together. With our roots entwined and foliage mingling, we would be two guardians side by side.

But one summer, the storms came stronger than I had ever known. The very ground beneath us shook with the strength of the thunder, and rain lashed against every branch and leaf. I felt the air shudder with a crack of lightning, bright and merciless, but it didn’t strike me. When the storm quieted, the clearing was different, though. My beloved child lay broken, its trunk split wide, its leaves blackened and smoking. Its roots, still tangled with mine, pulled faintly as if unwilling to let go.

I mourned in silence. Trees cannot cry. We can only ache with the loss. For years after, I still felt the ghost of my child’s presence. Even now, long after they returned to the earth, I still reach for them. I still remember.

But not everyone who claimed me disappeared so fast. Some returned, a lineage as enduring as my own. Some of my favorites were the crows. They came to me early in my life and never truly left.

They built their first nest high in my crown, wedging twigs into the crook of two thick branches. It swayed in the wind but did not fall, and I learned quickly how stubborn the crows were. Their voices were loud, sharp and unafraid. They scolded foxes in the undergrowth and chased predatory hawks from their nests. When their chicks hatched, the forest filled with hungry cries. I rocked them gently, letting the wind ruffle their down until it came time for them to learn to fly. Some tumbled, flapping clumsily until they caught the air. If they didn’t, they always got back up and tried again until they owned their flight.

When winter stripped me bare, I thought they would abandon me. But they clung to my branches, black shapes against grey skies, their calls ringing defiantly through the cold. And when spring returned, they rebuilt, feather by feather, twig by twig. Soon their children returned as well, mates in tow, and before long my crown was never empty.

They quarreled and schemed, filled my hollows with shiny trinkets stolen from the careless, cawed to one another from sunrise to dusk. Yet beneath all their noise was deep loyalty. Not just to each other, for crows are communal birds, but also to me. Through storms and droughts, through fires that blackened the earth beneath me, the crows endured. They always came back.

Year by year, generation by generation, the nests grew thick, one foundation built upon another until they seemed fused to me. Storms tore branches from me, but the crows always clung stubbornly, refusing to leave. Their presence became a part of m, as much a sign of the seasons as the budding of my leaves or the turning of them to gold.

When winter’s silence pressed heavy on the forest, it was the crows who kept me company. They gathered in great flocks, their wings beating like waves and their cries shattering the stillness. They brought life to me during the quiet months, and in their clamor I felt less alone.

Now, their numbers have thinned. The orange slash across my bark startled them, for even they understood what it meant. It drove most to new homes, but a few remain. They circle above me even now, their cries sharper than before, rough-edged with protest. Perhaps they will grieve me.

I cannot shield them from this, but I am grateful for the years and the loyalty they gave me. When I am gone, I believe they may return to this place. They will circle over the clearing where the Matriarch of Pinedrop once stood, calling into the emptiness as their voices carry me into memory.

But it is not just animals like the crows who returned to me. In all my years, I have been a witness to lives that come and go like seasons. Some stayed only for a moment. Others came back again and again until I knew the shape of their laughter, the weight of their grief. Among them was a family whose story I carried in my rings as surely as my own.

It began with two young lovers.

They found me on a warm summer evening, their hands twined together as though they feared being pulled apart. They laughed as they settled in my shade, their backs pressed to my trunk and their voices hushed but urgent with secrets meant only for each other.

After a while, one of them drew a pocketknife from his pocket and carefully carved their initials into my bark. It stung, but I bore it gladly. Their love was fresh and clumsy, like sap running from a fresh wound, but it was strong. They pressed themselves into me that day, etching their promise where wind and rain could not easily wash it away.

They came often after that. I listened to their dreams of a life beyond the clearing, saw them kiss with a tenderness that seemed almost reverent. They would lie on a blanket on the moss and watch the sky turn to fire at dusk. They would let the stars wheel above them while they planned futures too large to name.

I knew their voices, their laughter, the rhythm of their silences. They argued beneath my leaves too, sharp words flung like stones. Though the harshness would always gentle again, and they offered apologies with words and actions.

When autumn arrived and the air grew crisp, they returned. This time they brought no knife, no argument, only each other. They pressed their palms to the carving on my bark as if sealing the promise once more. As if to say: here, with this tree as witness, we remain.

Many seasons would come and go, and I thought they had moved on for good, when they returned once more. Only this time, they were no longer just two. The young woman carried a bundle against her chest, wrapped tight in cloth, small and restless. The man walked with pride, though I could see the tremor in his hands when he reached to adjust the blanket. Their voices tinged with exhaustion now, but also edged with awe.

They spread a blanket at my roots and laid the child down in the clearing’s dappled sunlight. The baby’s cries startled the birds nesting in my branches, but soon the sound settled to gentle coos while tiny hands clutched at the air. My branches protected them with shade as the rustle of my leaves in the wind provided a lullaby.

I heard them speak of hope as they once more leaned against my trunk, their shoulders pressed close. They wondered how well they would do raising their child, what kind of person they would become, and what kind of world they would inherit.

My bark still had the carving, and the man traced it with his finger before he once more pulled out his knife and brought it to my bark. The bite of steel was sharp, but the reverence he used to carve his child’s initials under theirs was so strong I could taste it as well as I could taste the earth.

Just as he finished, the baby wailed again, and they hushed it with murmured words, voices low and certain, not betraying the sense of doubt they spoke about. They were still so young , yet carried so much. I felt it as surely as the sap in my veins—their story was only beginning, and I would bear witness to all of it.

The seasons passed, and the bundle grew into a child who ran barefoot through the clearing. She wasn’t an only child either; two others followed. The trio loved to wrap their arms around my trunk, as far as they could go, hugging me as they laughed or sang along with the birds.

They left trinkets in the hollows of my bark, stones, feathers, the occasional shiny coin the crows would steal. Each gift was a treasure offered with solemnity, then quickly forgotten as play carried them away.

When the entire family would come, they would climb my lower branches despite their parents’ shouts. Though I worried about falls, I steadied them as best I could. The initials grew more numerous in my bark as the children brought other children to visit me. Each mark was a small claim on me, and I proudly bore them all.

Time, which moves so slowly for me, raced past for them. The children who once wrapped their arms around me grew taller and then vanished for seasons. I didn’t forget them, even as their voices faded from my clearing. The parents would still visit me, resting in my shelter as they spoke about their lives and all the wonder in it.

Then, one day, the oldest of the children returned. No longer a child, but an adult who came with her own lover, walking hand in hand just as her parents did before her. She showed off the carvings on my trunk, her finger lightly tracing each one as she shared her memories of her time here and the story of her parents. Before they left, her lover’s initials joined the others.

Soon after, they brought their own children, and my clearing once more heard the patter of small feet and the joyful and bright laughter of the young and unburdened. I grew to know their children as I knew them. Again, the children showed off the marks on my trunk and added fresh ones. Each mark was a continuation and a reminder that though their lives moved swiftly, they always circled back.

The family came less often as the years stretched on. Visits grew further apart, the children growing too busy; the parents growing too tired. Yet, they would still visit often enough, I could witness how their lives unfolded. Whether in laughter or in silence, in celebration or in sorrow, they always found their way back to me.

But now, the footsteps that come are not the footsteps of the ones I’ve loved.

The men who marked me come now with their growling machines that spit fumes into the air. Their voices are sharp, their laughter careless, and they move without reverence. I feel the soil tremble beneath their boots, the vibrations of engines rattling through my roots. Even before the first saw bites into me, I know this is the end.

The paint they used marked me deeper than any scar I’ve borne because it does not carry memory, like the initials caressed by lovers and children. It carries only a final, cold sentence. The birds have flown; the mammals have moved deeper into the woods. Only the insects remain, their one-track life keeping them here. Even the crows, my most faithful companions, keep their distance, their cries sharp but powerless to stop what comes. I and the insects remain.

When the chainsaw touches me at last, its teeth rip into my bark, through the flesh of my heartwood hardened by the centuries. The pain is sudden and electric. A burning vibration that shakes me from crown to root. But I have no way to cry out. My only voice is the groan of splitting wood, which I give them freely.

Deeper the saw cuts, widening the wound. Sap, my lifeblood, seeps sticky and sweet. A last gift poured out without choice. My branches tremble, my crown shivers, leaves still green fall. I bow at last, this inevitable moment guaranteed from that first hiss of paint.

When I fall, the forest shudders with the weight. Dust rises, leaves scatter, nests tumble. My life ends in one final thunderous moment that echoes for miles.

And then, stillness.

I do not regret this end. I have stood here for three hundred and eighteen years. Sheltered and witnessed, endured and given. My rings are heavy with stories. I end, but I do not vanish.

Please do not mourn me. Everything must die, but that does not mean we are forgotten. I will live on in the earth that nourished me. My absence will allow other seedlings to grow and enjoy the same experiences I did. I will live in the memory of the crows, in the silent stories of the animals, in the whispers of children who once played at my roots, in the stories carried forward by those who loved beneath my branches.

I will live on in all the lives I touched.

And that is enough.