Cottonwood

We take three paths to Cottonwood Falls, a wooded refuge on this worn-out family farm. In the first, you walk the long driveway towards the fallen cedars. Then, carefully cross Aunt Helen’s field while hugging the tight edge between crop and tree until you cross into the muffled forest.

Thirty paces downhill leads to a creek that tumbles over the massive mossy roots of a great burled cottonwood tree. We speak in hushed tones when we are there. Our instinct is to move slowly, deliberately, pulled by the trees into a variant time signature. In their way, they assure us—all will be well.

The second path goes through the wild garlic patch and up the ridge to a
meadow of rich grasses, punctuated by wild indigo, prickly pear and the depressions of old buffalo wallows. There you come to a steep wash, the remnants of an old pond with a narrow creek running fourteen feet below. We descend carefully, clinging to the papery orange roots of osage trees jutting from the eroded embankment. Scaling up the other side, we bow low under dead branches; once we can lift our heads, we are there.

In an abrupt curve of the creek stand the cottonwoods of Cottonwood Falls. Their immensity is a feat to perceive. My eyes demand time to adjust to their size, like walking from a dimly lit room into the light of day. Our impulse is to name them and acknowledge their tangible presence, but they don't need our naming—they will be the ones naming us, silent arbiters of our tending.


The third way is how we came to Cottonwood Falls the first time. After arriving at the farm, we wandered on deer paths cut simply and gracefully through the forest. Inadvertently, we came, stumbling into some ancient sanctuary built of fallen limbs the size of vast trees themselves. The center pillar of this cathedral leaps a hundred feet into the air, its mighty trunk host to a spiral staircase of bracketed artist conch mushrooms climbing higher than I can stretch. It was here, ankle-deep in cottonwood duff, that I became firmly rooted to this place, with an affection I cannot comprehend. Still, that affection radiates out in ever-widening circles of care encompassing field, meadow and forest. 


Early this spring, on pilgrimage to Cottonwood Falls, we found the central pillar tree had cracked and fallen. We were silent, lamenting the loss. Her crown, usually stretching toward the sun far from even the reach of our eyes, was reachable now, the pink-tinged cottonwood buds at eye level. While the sun pours through the negative space left by the absent tree, I gather some buds; my fingers left sticky with their odorous resin.

-Kristen Davidson