”I’ve Brought a Friend” painting/collage by Katie Stromme
“If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
The thought experiment of the mysterious tree falling brings to the fore themes of witnessing and perception. Who tells the story of something that was not witnessed?
But in an animate world, perception is always there, the question now comes to the storytelling, the translation of the event and the listening to the space in between. For those of you who know, when a tree falls in the forest it may not be an indication of an unhealthy ecosystem. That collapse makes space for light, water, and new growth.
Sometimes impactful moments, looming presences, or persistent influences of our lives are rarely outwardly acknowledged. We only feel the outline of them, pulling us with their heavy absence or their magnetic force as time marches forward. This is the realm of the psychological, but it also stretches beyond. Sometimes the aftermath of these events has left refuse that suffuses the air we breathe; sometimes their fallout alchemizes into the unseen limitations we can’t help but abide by, or, eventually, probe bravely into. The unheard calamity is only felt in its wake. This issue’s writers and artists proceed like detectives or trackers, inspecting the rich earth to understand what has occurred.
The Tree No One Heard – Anna C. Buchanan
horse chestnuts & willows – Isabelle Hidalgo
The Candle He Gave My Mother – Grace Holcomb
Peach Orchards – Lalo MacKenzie
Ilene Holding Firewood Forest – Joy Kreves
Issue 7 Wild Garlic is a publication of the Brooklyn Women’s Writing Group
Wild Garlic 