BY DARBY REDMAN
I am surrounded by clumps of trees, barren and apathetic. We walked this path when we were young, the sun spotting through trees and bees bumbling along the flowers. But the winter is cold and I am no longer with you. My old legs are shaking and my breath comes heavy, so I stop under a shroud of silence. I feel aimless, but my footprints trail long and straight through the fresh sheet of snow. I grab my cane and resume my march. I weave around the dormant trees toward a green dot.
I reach the clearing, where the tree stands. Its green needles sit dark against the white canvas around it. It is much taller and older now, but still the same. I flutter my fingers across the bark, finding the carving beneath them, faded yet still here. Silly little drawings and conversations written out on the bark.
The carvings take me back to a summer, many years ago, when the air was thick with the scent of pine and the wet heat of summer. I watched your soft, then young hands press the blade into the bark, deliberately carving our initials on the tree. You pluck two needles from the tree and hand them to me.
“We can take the needles from this moment in time, even once all the others die,” you said.
“But evergreen trees keep their leaves. It’s in the name. Ever-green.”
You beam up at me. “They are always green. But they don’t keep their leaves.”
“What?”
“They still drop their needles, just not all at once. Slowly.” You shake your head and go back to drawing.
A cold wind brings me back to the present, piercing the warmth of your memory. Air rustles through the pine and knocks a needle to the ground. You were always much smarter than me. I can’t hold on to you forever if you are dead, so if this tree can survive by letting go over time, then surely so can I.
Wisps of hot breath curl in front of me. My memories of you will become distant and vague. But slowly. And in the end I will still be left with the essence of you, ever living. Snow has begun to fall again, and my footprints have become hard to see. I close my eyes and let the wind pass through me.
Writer | Darby Redman ‘28 | dredman28@amherst.edu
Editor | Evelyn Chi ‘25 | etchi25@amherst.edu
Artist | Evelyn Chi ‘25 | etchi25@amherst.edu