When we first moved to Marlboro, in the winter of 2000, just after the baby was born and my mother was taken, it was the birches who soothed me–how they stood together–tall and thin and papery white.

But now I find my heart drawn to a single beech.

She stands out my window, in the east, beside the stone wall, ankle-deep in snow.

Her bark is almost chocolate and her lower branches cling to their leaves, aged to perfection–a tender blush–reminding me of spring.