English version *Heartwood* I found it at the edge of the pond. A log, half-sunken. Its bark had split in long strips, letting show What it had carried inside all along. There it was. The red. Not the red of wounds. The red that comes from years Of quiet, steadfast change. Tannins, resins, phenolic compounds In its oldest records, The ones that stopped carrying sap To begin carrying something else. I knelt in the mud. I felt it without touching it. I watched it for some time. The water moved over it And made its image uncertain, The way water does with everything we need to see. Tell me, what does the tree do When its interior Gives up its only task And fills itself, instead, with that which saves it? View quoted note →