The tree was here before us. It was a vast and spreading white oak with branches reaching out and up as if in celebration of the earth and air. It shaded an old farm house over on Homestead Road and stood like a guardian long after the farm was sold and the farmhouse condemned. I have no way of knowing the age of this spreading oak, but I think it was there before the farmhouse was built and most likely before the the farm existed. It may have even been there before the road, a young oak in the vast and uninterrupted forest that would later become Chapel Hill.
Stephanie and I spoke of this during our weekly walk along the Eno River, a tradition begun several years ago and one we have maintained, weather permitting. White oaks have a lifespan of several hundred years, and we wondered about the history such a tree has witnessed, the events that unfolded over the centuries of its life.
When Tropical Storm Michael raced through the Carolinas recently it brought a period of very heavy winds, and during the night the old oak toppled over, crushing the farmhouse.
At first this made me sad, to have such an ancient being meet its end so suddenly. But as I think of it now, perhaps it is fitting that Nature brought down one of her own, and that the oak didn’t fall to the indifference of commerce and yet another shopping mall or townhouse.
I would like to think that a new oak tree is beginning to grow out on the forest floor, the acorn putting down its tentative roots, beginning the cycle once again. Imagine what that tree will see in far off time, what tales it will tell, what songs it will sing?
whoisfenton 