The year begins quietly.
There is no beginning that the forest can mark.
Leaves have fallen. Some lie beneath the trees in layers, darkening and softening in the rain. Others have been carried into hollows. Some are caught in branches. Some have already become part of the soil.
Below them, things are moving.
Fungi extend through the earth.
Small creatures move between the leaves.
Roots remain where they have always been, reaching into the soil, meeting stone, water, darkness and one another.
Above the ground, the trees stand still.
But the forest is not still.
Rain enters the soil.
Water moves downward.
Roots take it up.
The cold deepens and then begins, almost imperceptibly, to release its hold.
Light changes.
A little more reaches the forest floor each day.
Then, somewhere high among the branches, a bud opens.
Nothing announces it.
There is only a small change in the tree.
Then another.
Then another.
The forest begins to turn towards spring.
New leaves unfold.
The canopy becomes lighter, then fuller.
Flowers appear where there were none before.
Their scents enter the air.
Insects arrive.
Some come from nearby. Some from far away.
A bee settles on a flower.
A beetle moves beneath a leaf.
A moth emerges after darkness.
Birds return to branches they used before, or arrive for the first time.
The forest is becoming crowded with movement.
And with each new movement, something else changes.
A leaf provides food.
A flower provides nectar.
A bird carries a seed.
An insect carries pollen.
A fallen branch becomes shelter.
A patch of sunlight reaches the ground and something begins to grow there.
Nothing is happening to the forest from outside.
The forest is changing because everything within it is changing.
Spring becomes summer.
The days lengthen.
The air grows warmer.
The canopy closes.
Less light reaches the ground.
Some plants that flourished in spring disappear beneath the growing shade.
Others begin where they could not have begun before.
The soil dries.
Then rain comes.
Water strikes leaves and branches, runs along bark, falls through the canopy and enters the ground.
The forest receives it in many ways.
Some remains on leaves.
Some runs down trunks.
Some sinks into the soil.
Some continues beyond the forest.
The rain does not belong to the forest.
Neither does the light.
Neither does the wind.
And yet each changes what the forest can be.
In the heat of the afternoon, the forest floor becomes still.
But beneath it, roots continue to grow.
Fungi continue to spread.
Small animals move through the darkness beneath the leaves.
Somewhere above them, a caterpillar eats.
A bird finds it.
The caterpillar is gone.
The bird flies away.
The tree remains.
But one of its leaves has been eaten.
Another insect arrives.
The tree changes.
The insect changes.
The bird changes.
Nothing remains untouched.
Summer passes.
Somewhere in the forest, a seed begins to form.
It is small.
The tree that carries it does not know what it will become.
The seed does not know.
It falls.
Perhaps it lands in shade.
Perhaps beneath another tree.
Perhaps on bare earth.
Perhaps it is eaten.
Perhaps it is carried away.
Perhaps it waits.
The forest does not decide.
It continues.
Then the light begins to change again.
The first leaves turn.
Green becomes yellow.
Yellow becomes brown.
Some leaves redden before they fall.
The canopy opens.
More light reaches the ground.
Birds leave.
Insects become fewer.
The air cools.
A leaf lets go.
It falls through the branches.
Then another.
Then thousands.
The forest floor disappears beneath them.
What was green above becomes brown below.
The fallen leaves begin another life.
Rain softens them.
Fungi enter them.
Small creatures feed among them.
What belonged to a tree becomes part of the soil.
The forest is feeding on what it has been.
Winter comes.
The trees stand bare.
The forest seems reduced.
But beneath the surface, almost nothing has stopped.
Roots remain.
Fungi spread.
Seeds wait.
Small animals shelter beneath fallen wood.
Water moves through the soil.
Somewhere, an insect survives the cold.
Somewhere else, a seed does not.
A branch breaks under wind.
It falls.
The forest changes again.
The fallen branch becomes part of the ground.
Moss grows upon it.
Moisture remains beneath it.
Small creatures find shelter there.
Later, the wood will soften.
Later still, it will become soil.
The forest does not keep its parts.
It takes them up again.
Winter deepens.
For a while, there is little colour.
The days are short.
Rain falls.
Mist settles between the trees.
The forest stands in the cold.
Then, slowly, light returns.
The change is almost too small to see.
A little more warmth enters the day.
A little more light reaches the branches.
Water begins to move differently through the soil.
A bud swells.
Another follows.
The forest has not been waiting for spring.
It has been becoming spring.
A bird returns.
An insect emerges.
A flower opens.
The first bee arrives.
The year has come around.
But nothing is where it was.
The tree has grown.
The fallen leaves have become soil.
The dead branch has become shelter, then food, then something else.
The seed may have become a tree.
The tree may have lost a branch.
The insects have lived and died.
The birds have come and gone.
The fungi have spread.
The soil has changed.
The paths through the undergrowth have shifted.
The forest is not the same forest.
And yet it is continuous with what it was.
There is no single thing that has carried the year.
The forest has lived through its relations.
Light with leaf.
Root with soil.
Flower with insect.
Seed with bird.
Water with earth.
Fungus with wood.
Shelter with animal.
Death with new growth.
Nothing has stood outside these relations and directed them.
Nothing has needed to.
The forest has not been a thing that the year happened to.
The year has been the changing forest.
And now the light is returning.
The buds are opening.
The insects are moving again.
The roots are drinking.
The birds are singing.
The forest begins another year.
Not again.
Once more.
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