The night the tree fell in the bird sanctuary north of Boston, a cold front swept down from the Canadian Maritimes, slammed into the heat wave, which had held the Northeast in its thrall for several days, and dared the wind to come out to play. The wind nodded its head, laughed at the convergence, and puffed itself up into a swirl of such force it dragged torrential rain and hail the size of grapes with it.
The old pin oak felt it coming, and tensed its shallow roots. The winter and spring had been unusually dry. The earth was loose and granular. There was nothing much on which to hold.
At first the tree thought the wind might pass. It had started with such a gentle rustle. The drop in temperature was, to be perfectly honest, a relief before the wind picked up speed. With the increased velocity came a force so sudden and powerful it flipped the tree’s leaves over backwards, bent and broke its branches, and as the tree tried desperately to maintain its connection, tore its roots from the rain-pummeled earth.
It was a long slow fall. The tree tried to hang on, but the weight of its branches and the relentless whorl of the wind conspired with gravity to pull it over. The wind rejoiced in the victory. After all, what fun was a game if you lost? It took one more playful turn at stirring up trouble, pelting the defeated oak with hail, before it tired of the sport, and whiffled away.
The tree’s uneventful life took a fateful turn that night in 1955. For so many years it had been home to birds, small mammals, insects, and species of a lichen, moss and fungi far too numerous to count. In these relationships it was steadfastly symbiotic, always conscious of the balancing act, of the give and take. Now the tree settled in for the long process of decay. Overnight it had become a host, a growth medium from which new life was bound to spring; so as considerate hosts always do, the fallen oak prepared to throw one hell of a party.