Ash Grey Sleeping Trees

Driving along the Virginia freeway at dusk, between the Dirty Old Black Dog bar and Denise's 50's Diner, we came upon a region of tall straight trees completely bare of leaves. Their trunks were soot-black in the failing light. Shrubs on the ground and smaller evergreens dotted here and there gave lie to the idea that these trees had burned. Most striking of all, the higher branches, all swept upwards like slim brooms, were also black and at their edges, they were luminously grey as though dusted with ashes against the darkening sky. But these trees have burned naturally. Their leaves were bathed in the Virginia sun all summer long and when that fire ran out in the autumn, and the leaves fell, the weathering rain and the gathering gloom had washed the branches to exactly the same tones as if a fire had surged through them, the two processes having the same end; a brutally exhausted sleeping tree, dusted with ash.