winter bark

Winter is a time for bark. In spring we see the buds and flowers, the maroon haze of maples and the fine, yellow-green mist that starts to spread across hillsides. In June we hear the whisper of young leaves, which deepen into rustles in summer and finally throaty rattles in fall. We identify by leaves, and marvel that oxidation and changes in sunlight morph green into golds and scarlets and purples. But in winter we finally see the skin, the shape of the skeleton itself. We tune a finer eye; texture becomes our pallet, subtler than outrageous shades of autumn leaves. We understand clearly the difference between the scales of red pine and the furrows of white, diamond skin of ashes and strips of hickory. Grays and browns and everything in between.

My skin itself sparks when I walk through the woods in winter. One only need see the smooth, muscled bark of a beech and the urge to drag one’s black-bear-claws into it makes the skin ripple. Sugar maple, its gray bark smooth in the young and cracked and furrowed in age gives nuthatches crooks and crevices to search. The jaggy diamonds of white ash beg to traced, exaggerated snake skin and back-scratcher extraordinaire. And the birches! They are the swans, the snow geese, the cardinals of winter – bold and daring and stark in their contrast to winters grays and greens. Paper, its swaths of combustible bark, and gray with its chevron-eyes. Yellow birch seems to me a sneaking ghost of Christmas present, in all its ebullient, shimmering opulence. It recalls the gold Rumpelstiltskin spun, and its twigs in deepest winter are sharp and sweet. They grow larger and thicker than all the rest, and seem jolly in their girth.

But, to me, winter belongs to the hickories and aspens. The great, ripping shreds of shagbark hickory seem almost indecent. The strips detach at both ends, holding fast in the middle, giving the tree an appearance both undulating and sharp. The ripped bark might seem an entry way, a vulnerability, but in fact they are plates of flame-resistant armor. It is one of the only trees that can withstand the hottest fires, the strips creating a barrier with pockets air outside the precious cambium layer. There are three shagbark hickories that will stay in my memory forever, and even the thought of them makes me draw my breath.

And then the great producer of clones, the colonizer, pioneer, succulent food and northern-most survivor: Populus tremuloides, the quaking aspen. Its bark is beyond compare. Come to a grove of aspen just before twilight on the clearest winter days and you’re through. It is an olive-gold unrivaled, the color magnificent, and the secret to its near-artic existence. Aspen photosynthesizes through its bark, and the lighter color also prevents cracks on the coldest winter nights. Trees with darker bark will absorb surprisingly large amounts of heat on even the coldest winter days, if there’s sun. As night approaches the temperature drops rapidly, and the difference in temperature will cause huge cracks down a tree, most often on its southern side. But aspen, and birch, rarely suffer the scars. They stay bright, and they stay cold. Aspen bark is a favorite of beavers and porcupines alike – I’ve seen a tubby, spikey fellow high up in an aspen more than once (being remarkably well-protected, they don’t much bother with curious and noisy on-lookers below).

Aspen is glorious in all seasons – watch its shaking, silver coin leaves turn to gold come autumn. But in winter it reigns, and evokes that near-divine response, the humble awe, the quaking.