This elder Eastern Cottonwood (populis deltoides) I met yesterday on a walk has deeply grooved magnificent bark that looks like it was sculpted out of mortar and stone. His trunk is massive (as large as some of the middle aged western cedars I met in Fairy Creek). His presence compared to the elder beech and tulip trees nearby was powerful.

Cottonwoods are often misunderstood and disliked by those wrapped up in today’s superficial anthropocentric modern culture (the seeds get in people’s fancy pools) but these magnanimous beings are in fact water and soil remediators, soil builders, habitat providers and medicine givers. I recently found a bald eagle nest in one of this guys little brothers in an adjacent forest.

I for one am grateful for the gifts and presence of these beings here in southern Ontario where the soil, water and forest is in desperate need of healing.

——

(42nd parallel, near north shore of Lake Erie, Eastern woodlands of Turtle Island, November 8th, 2025)