Juniper Tremper
Scientific Writing 105-19
Geneseo, NY
~270 words

The Absence of the Foliage
by Juniper Tremper

The curious bit about our interference as humans in the natural word is our constant efforts to remain connected to the way it was, prior to our meddling. The townhouses, built years ago, offer a beautiful view of the western horizon, but the entire stretch between the houses has been paved over, with the exception of a series of triangular plots filled with mulch. Each plot is identical: brown, woodbased mulch, roughly three footsteps from any corner to another, and most importantly, enclosing a stump. Not a tree, but a stump. We redesignated these sections of land as homes for college students, constructing the infrastructure to suit our purposes, and we cemented over any visible grass so no weeds could go through. But we planted trees evenly between the houses because we still wanted to feel like we were outdoors while walking across our human-made terrain from one human-made building to another. Then, for some unlisted reason, we cut the trees down. We severed the connection to nature that we so decisively planted, and somehow, even though the horizon glows unmatchably natural shades of orange, the stumps are a sad sort of reminder that as easily as we can let ourselves become a part of nature, so too can we distance ourselves.

No one seems to know whether there are plans to bring back the trees. To be fair, why make the effort, if no one notices the absence?

Perhaps the trees were growing up too close to the west-facing windows, and the foliage was blocking a resident’s view of the beautiful nature just outside their closed window…