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The Passing of The Sentinel
Late in May a massive storm ended the life of one of Glacial Park's most ancient oaks in the Thomas Cemetery, fondly called The Sentinel.
The birthing of The Sentinel nearly 400 years ago began with an acorn embarking on its journey during a violent August thunderstorm that claimed its parent tree in a single flash of lightning. The same power¬ful winds sundered the fragile bonds joining stalk to stem and swept the nut groundward where chance brought it to rest in an abandoned deer mouse nest among the wood betony leaves.
Hidden from view and shielded from the intense summer sun the acorn burrowed downward into the centuries old humus until the tug of accumulated moisture fractured the tough outer shell releasing the birth root to delve deep into the richness of the soil.
So time elapsed, measured by blooms and burns, rains and drought, flights of passenger pigeons and bugling autumn elk. When moccasined feet gave way to farmer's boots, the oak was a learned elder attended by hun¬dreds of smaller progeny, surround¬ing the massive trunk, like suppli¬cants at some ancient oracle. Lower limbs stretched across the clearing left by its parent tree two centuries before until not only a deep shade surrounded the huge bole on all sides, but a deep peace pervaded the glade as well.
Perhaps it was that peace that drew a pioneer family to assuage its grief by burying their children beneath its soft shadows, beseeching those limbs to never forget where they slept. That same peace continued to guard them long after the wooden crosses had disappeared and the graves lay forgotten for twelve decades.
When the springtime storm claimed the life of The Sentinel, it severed its lower limbs, and weakened the 400 year old trunk. The final collapse came a few weeks later and The Sentinel lay upon the ground, a nearly half millennium journey complete.
Around its fallen body two dozen saplings felt the flush of a sun whose full light had not kissed the ground since the first European settlers marveled at the world beyond the sands of the Virginia shores.
And the long journey began anew.
Ed Collins is Natural Resource Manager at the McHenry County, Illinois, Conservation District and a poetic observer of the natural world he inhabits. Ed graciously gave me his permission to contribute his essay to the GEx blog ---Louis LaRocco, GEx board member
