The ents may have lost their wives but I have found their children.
The Entlings are a little on the small side but I have no doubt they will grow into something much larger. Exactly what, I’m not quite sure; there is a dark and gnarly malevolence to them, with their tangled, mutant mangrove legs. Perhaps they are the children of huorn, and I am unwittingly raising monsters to unleash on the world. I have been half-expecting them to scuttle off, back into the wood, when I am not looking.
I found these fellows beneath a tallow wood tree by our back deck. It is afflicted with some 
sort of blight, which seems to kill off twigs and branches but not before they swell and blacken.
I have seen bits and pieces of it before, occasional fallen sticks about the place, but never in such intensity. And never so many creature-like pieces. They kept appearing by the back steps like lost children, one each day. As if afraid I would reject them if they all turned up at once.
I have learned not question gifts from above, from the wood, even when I do not understand. I gathered each one up, placing it with the others on the outdoor table, where I can watch them from the kitchen. I photographed them all, in case they do disappear. And in the meantime, I set them at the empty places around the table.
