The Overstory

by Richard Powers

Almost every part of need is created by a reflex, phantasmal, and democratic committee whose job is to turn one season’s necessities into the next’s yard sales.

We’re cashing in a billion years of planetary savings bonds and blowing it on assorted bling.

In ancient island temples on the other side of the Earth, thousand-year-olds, molten and blasted, close to enlightenment, swell to incredible girth, their elbows growing back down from giant branches to re-root into new trunks of their own.