Set apart from the compound friction of forest, a rough-barked bur oak, mostly trunk, outlives its understory.

A sapling in 1700, it rose like smoke from leaf litter, a totem for those who told tales vertically, every episode the offspring of earth and sky.

Carotenoids flare through its vascular system in slow time, releasing aromas of black tea and tobacco.

Winter-hardened, the oak endures, a column supporting nothing but its own fixed extension.

The fine point of a feeding warbler– a drifting spark or cursor– ghosts its crown.