The Last Sentinel

For years, I looked at this watershed through the lens of a taxonomist, trying to balance a ledger that wasn’t mine to settle. I used words like "debt" and "audit" to make sense of the scars left by the lumber companies and the neglect of previous owners.

But as I stand here with a chainsaw, feeling the vibration of the steel against the resistance of the wood, that professional distance has dissolved. The academic shield has been flayed away by the grit of the work. The Ledger isn’t a spreadsheet anymore; it’s a scrawl. It’s the raw record of what remains.

The peninsula on the eastern shore is a high-exposure zone—the "stern" of the property where the prevailing winds have a direct line of sight. To reach it, we follow a path cut through the wreckage of those who came before.

Most of the maples here are modern, weak-stemmed things, but one white pine stands apart. By the look of it, the tree is well over a century old. It was here before the dam, before the current shoreline, and long before We arrived to claim a few acres.

It is no longer vertical. The winds have compromised the foundation. The lean is a raw, physical fact—an angle that suggests the center of gravity has shifted beyond the point of recovery. There is a primal urge to shore it up—to bring in pulleys and cables and force it back—but the leverage of the wind is absolute.

I no longer feel the need to intervene. It will eventually go over. The disruption is scheduled—a mechanical necessity to reinforce a frame that has weathered its own share of seasons. Unlike the pine, I have the opportunity to shore up the foundation and reset the center of gravity. I look forward to it with a certain anticipation; I want the mobility to keep working this patch of Turtle Island.

I spend the afternoons beneath the tree with a chainsaw and a splitting axe, processing the downed hemlock and birch. I enjoy the labor. It works on my health and my frame, returning a different kind of heat than what the woodpile offers.

I am just someone watching seedlings push through the debris, and the pine is the last sentinel of an older woods, forced into decline. The winds take it hard, and the absence of its peers leaves it exposed. Every gust reminds me that survival here has been bought with the absence of others. We are both still here, weathered and scarred, but neither of us is untouched by what has been taken. We are just standing on the same ground for a little while longer.