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And yet, the trees call out—shuddering and silent, scourged by Toiling Times—the agony in their shrill gasping: an eerie, early echo of man grasping in his moment upright among the apes.

Blown about and bent, twisted and rent, blasted, forgotten—once loved and prized above all others, now felled to be befouled by skeletal caresses.

Heaven-sent? These creatures? Whence did they descend? From the Highest Heaven? From the Throne of Glory, Godwrought and glad? Or merely from the trees?

Yes, surely from the trees.

And yet, deep within the droning whispers of the trees, there is another voice, and it is not one of ours.