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Kousa dogwood . June 2019 . Amherst MA

The things I know:
how the living go on living
and how the dead go on living with them.

So that in a forest even a dead tree casts a shadow
and the leaves fall one by one
and the branches break in the wind
and the bark peels off slowly
and the trunk cracks
and the rain seeps in through the cracks
and the trunk falls to the ground
and the moss covers it
and in the spring the rabbits find it
and build their nest inside
and have their young and their young will live safely
inside the dead tree.

So that nothing is wasted in nature or in love.

—Laura Gilpin from “Life After Death”

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