“The trees were like black skeletons reaching to the sky, pleading with their bony arms for the sun to get stronger.”
“The tree that never had to fightfor sun and sky and air and lightbut stood out in the open plainand always got it share of rain,never became a forest kingbut lived and died a scrubby thing.Good timber does not grow with ease.The stronger wind, the stronger trees. ”
“He’s pale, bald, and bony. He looks like a skeleton. And that, my friend, is precisely why I keep him in my closet.”
“I glanced out the window at the signs of spring. The sky was almost blue, the trees were almost budding, the sun was almost bright.”
“The town does not existexcept where one black-haired tree slipsup like a drowned woman into the hot sky.”
“In the far reaches of the county, cottages were found with skeletons enlaced in the beds, the bones of the baby in the kettle.”