His canoe was still. His eyes shot on. A grove of trees was sheer against the sky and his eyes.... Through the calm passion of the summer lake with its clinging marges, through the cool strong lake tossing its mystery in waves upon the shore that loved it, a grove of trees was sheer against the sky and his eyes. A grove of trees was a crown on the sharp brow of earth. A grove of trees was black with a great depth.
Their great black depth was a mouth: a silent mouth full of sound. They stood there still above the lake and moved into his mood. They sucked him.
He found he thought of them as one. He found he had long been still in his canoe, measuring himself against them.
There was within them something hidden that sent him forward; something hidden that drove him off. He was balanced.
The lake was light and cool and open. In the trees was great heat, great closeness. The boy who was nearly a man felt he was naked and that the trees would clothe him: he had delight of his nakedness as if he had thrown off some bondage.
He looked about him, and the trees were in his eyes: wherever he looked they were, like a love that a man carried with him. He saw the mountain loom, the dense cloud over the world: he felt how strange was this lake on which he was uplifted into a naked world. He let his eyes fall back to the trees—his body all that time had fronted them—and understood how it would be a terrible joy to be consumed by them.
The trees swayed. They were arms with eloquent sad hands.
He struck the water with his paddle. His canoe came alive. He was going to plunge into the trees....
A part of him laughed for they were only trees.
The trees began to cut off his sense of the sky. They breathed deep ... no part of him laughed. He glided. The trees opened their arms. Leaves trembled and danced faintly. The world of sky swooned out: the world of black trees swept his being.