Root Systems

Abstract

38 CARSON ASH BEKER Root Systems  Trees in real forests share information below ground. Through root systems, mycorrhizal networks, they transmit information. —Dr. Susanne Simard Transmission: Enter forest; enter Us, one (1) Red Riding Hood. Transmission: Received. Red Riding Hood enters the forest where her grandmother entered before, but does not leave. Transmission: Lost. Transmission: A crow flies above the canopy, lifted in its wings. From above, the forest is shaped like the dot of a green question mark. And beyond? Transmission: Signal lost. Why? Where did the crow go? Where did Red Riding Hood go? Transmission: To: Forest Eyes That Look And Don’t Blink Question: What was she wearing? Red Riding Hood is a girl wearing a provocative cloak = Danger Red Riding Hood is a boy wearing a hoodie = Danger Red Riding Hood was neither a girl nor a boy; in fact, the first time they put on the red riding hood was the first time they knew an answer to the question, What are you? In the red folds of that red hood— 39 Transmission: Received. Answer: I am Red Riding Hood. You need this type of I to do things like enter the woods. And get lost. Transmission: A crow flies above the canopy of the forest. The air that spins around the trees captures the smell of a squirrel, not alive but alive inside with bugs. The smell circles upward and catches the crow, so it dives. Transmission: When a bird flies, is the flight in the feathers or in the bird? This is a trick question, distracts the crow from the bigger question of the hawk approaching, compressing air. Where go the crow? The crow falls, is eaten. The crow falls, is eaten. Some of the crow hits the ground—two wings; loam, redwood pine— and begins to sink slowly. Decomposition. Transmission. Transmission. Transmission: A crow flies and flies above a green forest that is not there anymore, no more than the crow is there. The crow and the forest are here, in transmission. Transmission: The crow fell and the forest ended. Question: Why did the forest end? Transmission: [Cut. Not received.] Transmission: A lumberjack cuts trees, cuts root systems, cuts lines. Transmission: Around the crow there is wolf. What’s the deal with this wolf? Transmission: The wolf ate only one wing. He should have eaten two. Longing for flight without being able to. That’s the kind of thing that makes fairy-tale wolves cruel. 40 Root Intersection: Under The Outhouse Behind Grandma’s House: So Many Transmissions! The lumberjack destroyed the forest. Grandmaandthelumberjackarehavingtea.Theyhaveteaevery Wednesday. Their stories cross at the root systems under Grandma’s outhouse. He was trespassing. She was generous. It was embarrassing. They had tea. The lumberjack carries in his heart the spit of his father (also a lumberjack) because: splinters. After tea, the lumberjack goes out back. To chop some wood, he says. But really to use the outhouse, with its sunken-in roof open to the canopy and the stars, looking. Transmission: Brightness Of Stars: Cookies: Compost: Decomposition And she, Grandmother, crosses the kitchen and puts on his lumberjack flannel and the smell of sweat and wood shavings (Transmission), and she looks in the mirror, and she likes what she sees—the way her short white hair now stands up, the way the sag of her two breasts in the flannel seems to say something different than Old&Tired. Transmission: Take That&Fuck You Grandma pushes her legs out and sticks her thumbs into the waistband of her grey pajamas and scowls at her reflection. She takes a fork, and now it’s a cigarette, and she props one foot against the wall behind her, which is where the lumberjack finds her, walking through the door, he buckling up his pants, she smoking a cigarette-fork. “I’ll trade you for a day,” is the lumberjack’s transmission. Transmission: The lumberjack is thinking how nice it would be to stay here in the kitchen, near the outhouse, and bake. He puts on the apron. Grandmother walks out the back door and picks up the ax. 41 Transmission: How did Red Riding Hood get mixed up with the wolf? Response...