{"id":5350,"date":"2012-08-01T00:10:17","date_gmt":"2012-08-01T05:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"\/nashvillereview\/?p=5350"},"modified":"2015-02-15T22:44:12","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T04:44:12","slug":"dendrochronology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/5350","title":{"rendered":"Dendrochronology"},"content":{"rendered":"

I: The Event<\/em><\/p>\n

The sun had slid a tad past its crest
\nwhen the war cries began to compete
\nwith the birds and the brook to score<\/p>\n

the afternoon. The battle never arrived
\nthough all blades were sharpened, all<\/p>\n

clubs expertly weighted. Thunder drowned
\nall other sounds. Rain turned the enemy
\ninto the outline of the enemy. One warrior<\/p>\n

rested his back against rough bark. This
\nis when it happened. This is where it<\/p>\n

happened. The mountain molted\u2014shivered,
\nseemed to grow, while its old skin slid
\ntoward them, told them darkness.<\/p>\n

II: The Burial<\/em><\/p>\n

The one at rest was crushed in place,
\nhis ribs splayed and wrapped around
\nthe tree as far as they could reach. Weapons<\/p>\n

were washed down the earthstream
\nfrom their wielders, as if mudslides<\/p>\n

were pacifists. And hate and fear met
\nsediment and mica chips and silica
\nand became the new ground, became solid.<\/p>\n

III: The Wait<\/em><\/p>\n

A scene preserved. Three bodies swept up
\nagainst the man-tree, seven just past. An axe
\nwell after that. Above, the fields were sown,<\/p>\n

above the sun was taught its fixed position,
\nwords became things easily stored, carts learned
\nhow to move on their own. Men asked for shovels<\/p>\n

and shovels were granted. They were not digging
\nfor treasure, or shelter, or fuel. They were digging
\nfor stories, for new words to package the land in.<\/p>\n

IV: Unearthing<\/em><\/p>\n

It started with a sliver of sunlight high in the branches,
\nsomething they had not felt in millennia. In the same few<\/p>\n

inches, a war club that must have been forced up
\nin the wave of mud. This made them believers. They<\/p>\n

reached into their pockets for their loved ones, their
\ncolleagues. The strata were messy. No one was quite sure<\/p>\n

to when they were digging. But when they reached
\nthe base of the trunk and found the flat skull, the bones
\nhugging bark, bottles popped, cheers rose into the morning.<\/p>\n

V: Cross Section<\/em><\/p>\n

They were mining for time, but time was not cooperating.
\nThe artifacts seemed anachronistic. Stern men praised
\nthe mud for the find and cursed it for scattering the years.<\/p>\n

Man and tree were separated, one to be taken apart, one
\nto be reassembled. A susurrus hung around the site:
\na busy fog thick with the news that history was asleep<\/p>\n

in the tree trunk\u2014this is where dates could be harvested.
\nTeeth sped into old wood, or mineral, the oak corpse.
\nSlices of seasons met fluorescent light.<\/p>\n

VI: The Reading of Rings<\/em><\/p>\n

Regardless of the thousands of scrapes and splinters,
\nhe had soft hands\u2014soft enough to feel rings through
\nthe gloves. This was the interpreter, the master sequencer.<\/p>\n

He would chant his findings like a serial number:
\ndraught, famine, healthy season, draught, fire, rainy season\u2014<\/p>\n

through certain magics, this shaman could make the chant
\ninto an era, read history back into the scene, transmute<\/p>\n

the seasons into numbers, force those newly born
\nnumerals into a line.<\/p>\n

John A. Nieves<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I: The Event The sun had slid a tad past its crest when the war cries began to compete with the birds and the brook to score the afternoon. The battle never arrived though all blades were sharpened, all clubs expertly weighted. Thunder drowned all other sounds. Rain turned the enemy into the outline of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-1oi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10253,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350\/revisions\/10253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}