The Overstory

by Richard Powers

You have given me a thing I could never have imagined, before I knew you. It’s like I had the word “book,” and you put one in my hands. I had the word “game,” and you taught me how to play. I had the word “life,” and then you came along and said, “Oh! You mean this.”

the width and height and depth of where I live—again, alongside you.

banyan.

“Mâi kâo chai

With that, he blacks out again and resumes the long, cyclic task of falling. This time, he keeps on tumbling as the Earth beneath him opens wide and takes him in. He falls deep underground, a long, luxurious drop into the kingdom of roots. He plunges beneath the water table, downward toward the beginning of time, into the lair of a fantastic creature whose existence he never imagined.

A tree saved his life. It makes no sense.

Douggie is aware that the behavior could appear somewhat eccentric, from the outside. But it’s Idaho, and when you spend all your hours with horses, your soul expands a bit until the ways of men reveal themselves to be no more than a costume party you’d be well advised not to take at face value.

He still limps a bit, as he swings the hammer. His face has grown long and horsey, in unconscious imitation of the animals he tends.

The trees are like a few dozen movie extras hired to fill a tight shot and pretend to be New York.

“Have they been clear-cutting, up the valley?” The man takes Douggie’s silver dollars. “Shit, yeah.” “And hiding it behind a little voter’s curtain?” “They’re called beauty strips. Vista corridors.” “But . . . isn’t that all national forest?” The cashier just stares, like maybe there’s some trick to the question’s sheer stupidity. “I thought national forest was protected land.” The cashier blows a raspberry big as a pineapple. “You’re thinking national parks. National forest’s job is to get the cut out, cheap. To whoever’s buying.”

But the deliberate, simpleminded, and sickeningly effective trick of that highway-lining curtain of trees makes him want to smack someone. Every mile of it dupes his heart, just like they planned. It all looks so real, so virgin, so unspoiled.

You could drive across the state and never know. That’s the fury of the thing.

The smell of the cuts overwhelms him. Damp spice drawer. Dank wool. Rusty nails. Pickled peppers. Scents that return him to childhood. Aromas that inject him with inexplicable happiness. Smells that plunge him down to the bottom of the deepest well and hold him there for hours.

Trees fall with spectacular crashes. But planting is silent and growth is invisible.

profligate

Rain the weight and color of lead.

skeins

conchas