The Felling

Here the forest simply stops. A raw clearing opens to the sky, hundreds of fresh stumps covering the slope, blond and flat-topped, their cut faces still weeping resin. Branches lie heaped in long slash piles, drying grey, with brambles already threading through them. Fireweed has come up pink between the stumps, and wild raspberry clusters along the ruts. Ochre mud has been churned deep by dragged trunks. A skid trail runs north-east across it toward a smudge of kiln smoke. Against the far side stands the old forest edge, a dark wall of ancient oaks almost black in shadow. One huge edge oak bears two marks at once: a fresh axe blaze cut through the bark, and a ring of red paint around the trunk just above it. Its neighbours carry the same pairing. A lean-to of rough poles shelters saws, steel wedges and a blackened kettle. Noon light lies hard and bright on the cut wood.