Sept 15, 2024 | Baton Rouge, Louisiana (Mississippi River levee near LSU) | 88°F, humid but falling, golden afternoon light, faint breeze off the water | First real hint of autumn

There is an old cottonwood I have quietly named Treebeard.

He stands alone on the cutbank where the river keeps trying to steal the land, roots like Entish fingers dug deep into the red clay, refusing to yield. Half the trunk is lightning-hollowed, one enormous limb open to the sky like a pipe organ, yet every April he still sheets out green louder than any tree his age has a right to. By June he snows cotton; by October he burns gold so fierce the eagles use him as a torch to find their way home.

On days when the wind moves down the river just right, that hollow limb sings: low, slow, resonant. Hoom-hom, if you speak the old tongue and have had enough coffee. You would think he is speaking to you.

Some evenings when the light slants low and the cicadas quiet down, I half expect to look up and find only a raw scar in the earth, great root prints marching downstream on whatever ancient errand the river finally convinced him to run.

He is always still there.

If you ever walk the levee path just south of the LSU lakes, look for the grandfather leaning far out over the channel, eagle in his hair, sky in his heart. Speak slowly. He is never in a hurry.

Hold fast, old friend. Some of us still need shepherds.

🌿🦅