The northern birch is low, shrubby, as if it didn't need to become a tree. Its trunks don't grow straight up.
They twist, turn, and intertwine with each other. One goes off to the side, another comes back, a third lies down nearby — and all of it forms some intricate pattern that you want to examine like an ornament.
It seems as if the tree isn't growing, but slowly weaving itself. Perhaps the North itself is to blame.
Here there are strong winds, long winters, short summers. Snow, cold, stones. The tree has to grow not so much upward as sideways — to find a place where it can shelter, warm itself, hold on. And maybe that's why there is so much movement in these birches.
Even their leaves are special — small, light, almost lacy. Against the northern blue sky, they look as if someone painted them with a fine brush.
I looked at these trunks for a long time and thought about how strangely nature can turn necessity into beauty. Everything that once hindered growing straight eventually became a pattern.