Boundaries and Frontiers

Legally, the rocks challenge the wind and water for the right to wield supreme executive power over the forest. They believe only they are capable enough to determine the shifty border that separates the forest proper from the provinces beyond. The animals, for their part, stay out of it, content to exist within the comfortable confines represented by the visible limit of the forest as determined by the clear demarcation between trees and fields. The rocks extend the forest’s boundary a little farther to include the far-reaching roots which siphon water filtered through the bedrock under the fields. The water and wind challenge the rocks’ claims and determine that even the fields are within the domains of the forest since without the forest’s edge there would be no such thing as a field in the first place. The rocks are legacy, the wind and water an omnipresent history able to reference the constant stability of their repetitive impermanence. We have yet to hear from the trees as to which side of the debate they favour. Thus far they have been able to remain aloof despite having a vested interest in a larger, static and fixed forest.