But the spruces pour out messages in media of their own invention. They speak through their needles, trunks, and roots. They record in their own bodies the history of every crisis they’ve lived through. The man in the tent lies bathed in signals hundreds of millions of years older than his crude senses. And still he can read them. The five white spruces sign the blue air. They write: Light and water and a little crushed stone demand long answers.
