Strolling away from Notre-Dame des Bonnes Odeurs, the young beech stand. The ground is all leaves. Last year’s leaves, dry and settled in early spring, lying one over another in a soft brown drift. They do not seem in a hurry to become anything else. Yet they will.
In nudity of leaf, structure is revealed. The eye travels upward along the clean shafts, then outward into a lattice of fine branches, drawn with a precision almost architectural. One has the impression of a design repeated many times, each instance slightly revised, as though the forest were engaged in a long and patient experiment.
There will be thinning; not all will remain. But for now they offer themselves, ashen-grey on faded bronze, tree-spooks.