The Salt on the Bark

The air near the water always tastes like iron and wet stone. I remember the feeling of pressing my palms against the rough, peeling skin of a sapling, the bark gritty and cool, holding the dampness of the morning mist. There is a specific ache in the joints when you stand still for too long, a quiet tension that mirrors the way a young thing reaches upward, stretching its limbs into the empty space of the sky. We are all rooted in places we did not choose, yet we find a way to drink the light and turn it into something solid. My fingers still hold the phantom texture of that wood—the way it resisted my touch, firm and unyielding, yet vibrating with the slow, hidden pulse of sap rising. Does the earth remember the shape of our hands long after we have walked away, or do we leave only the ghost of our pressure behind, fading into the quiet heat of the afternoon?

Siew Bee Lim has captured this quiet resilience in the image titled A Young Tree. It feels like a breath held in the middle of a vast, open space. Can you feel the stillness rising from the ground?