losen slote ramapo river overpeck lake

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now we are three

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great oaks

While talking to a man who was clearing a path

Following the last big storm blowdown here

I heard something new to me

How the forest succession is changing.

He was lamenting the loss of the old oak trees

Saying they are the last of their kind around here.

There are so many deer in the suburban woods

Browsing the saplings there are no young trees.

Now I am looking at the trees with new eyes.

Will there be no acorns underfoot in a few years?

Forests change.  The grand chestnut trees are relics.

The elm trees are almost gone though I remember them.

I won’t be here to see this future beech forest

Without oaks.  By then no one will know it was like

Under the great oaks and graceful elms or picture a scene

 “Under the spreading chestnut tree…”

But perhaps this prediction is wrong.

If there are no acorns to feed the deer

There will be few deer to eat the oak saplings.

I think the deer will thin out as the old oaks thin out.

And then the oaks could make a comeback.

There’s a balance between eater and eaten.

And there’s another protection for the saplings

Perhaps keeping the deer away like a fence.

When a tree falls and there’s a clearing open to the sky

The prickly berry bushes thrive in a dense thicket.

The saplings can grow there safe from foragers.

I think the oak trees may be around for a long time.

wood thrush singing in lost brook preserve