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When I walk before the sun is up, I tend to focus on winter branches, leafless and sculptural, filling out the morning sky as it brightens, especially on cloudless days. And when I walk later in the day, I find myself looking in a more focused way, at the trunks, yes, but often down, at the ground and the base of trees.

There’s so much here for me to notice. There’s the slight wrinkles in the bark as the trunk curves up. And there’s the colorful, exfoliated bark that vaguely resembles the bark of Sycamore trees. And at this tree’s base, there is the gentle, curving crescent, seemingly incomplete, non-circular, mysterious.

The ground is littered with debris of neighboring trees from the fall and winter and it creates a contrast with the bark, so distinct. What might live in that almost hollow area? It’s a comfort on a bitter cold day.