text: The year is 1937, and it is an acorn in autumn, growing on its parent's limb. A breeze rushes through the valley, snapping it off its brittle twig and sending it tumbling down to earth, landing in a fertile, nourishing cowpat, on the other side of a low wooden fence (a human marker for which stretch of featureless plain is and is not a ranch), not ten feet away from where it first grew. No one is here to witness this, save a single squirrel, collecting the acorn's siblings for winter, three branches above the branch the acorn fell from. She does not notice, or care, that it fell. The year is 1937, and the acorn has gone unnoticed for months, having been trampled and shoved below the once-soft earth by cow hooves, horses, and the leather boots of cowboys in deerskin and steel spurs. The ground is frozen now, and the acorn lies dormant in hard soil. The squirrel that unknowingly witnessed its falling searches for where she buried its siblings among pale snow, lost in the falling flakes of a coming blizzard. She will not find all of them. She will not live to see the spring. In her bones, so small and so fragile against the immensity of the world and the unforgiving cold, she knows this, and she is afraid. It is the winter of 1937, and she dies against the roots of the parent tree, the only landmark she can be sure of in the whirling chaos of the blizzard. When the storm is over, a starving fox finds her corpse, and is grateful for it. The year is 1938, and it is a minuscule shoot of green in the spring, nearly indistinguishable from the miles of grass around it. What was once a cowpat has become rich soil, and the young oak's roots grow deep and strong. A newborn calf, sleeping in the noonday sun beside his mother, does not know this. He has only lived a day and a half, and the ranchers have not discovered him yet. The year is 1938, and it is high summer. The sprout is a sapling, and is now a little taller than the surrounding grass. What will become its trunk is now too tough and woody to be chewed, and curious cows will spit out its bitter leaves. The calf born that spring now grazes beside his siblings in the herd, having been weaned, and avoids the young oak tree, nibbling the grass around it. He has tasted the leaves of the sapling before, and he knows it does not make a good meal. The year is 1938, and it has been exactly a year since the sapling fell as an acorn. The calf is growing fast, and he will be a yearling bull in six short months. The ranchers have pierced his nose in preparation for a ring, as they plan to use him to pull the plow. The parent tree, ten feet away, drops more acorns. The year is 1938, and it is deep winter. The calf has been moved into a barn with his herd, and the oak sapling, along with its parent, loses its leaves and goes dormant. The year is 1939, and it is spring again. A mated pair of robins make their nest in the parent tree's branches, a few feet higher than the place where the sapling fell from. The calf is now a yearling, and has been given to heifers several times now. He is young and strong and full of vigor, and challenges older bulls whenever he has the chance. His whole life is ahead of him, though it will be shorter than he instinctively believes it will be. The oak sapling has grown twice as tall as it was last spring, and humans take note of it now, in passing. Its presences means little to them, and so they leave it be. The year is 1939, and it is summer on the ranch once more. The young bull is now a steer, and he feels different, though he doesn't understand why. The young robins who hatched in the branches of the parent tree fly freely now, all but one of their clutch (who fell from the nest as a hatchling) still alive and singing. The young oak is nearly a grown tree now, and its parent is growing acorns early. It will not grow acorns of its own for decades yet. It is the autumn of 1939, and the oak tree is two years old. The family of robins have flown south, leaving their old nest of twigs and cow hair vacant. A hundred feet away, the young steer struggles with his handlers. The ranchers mean to sell him for the slaughter, but since his castration, he has grown to distrust them, and so he fights them with every ounce of his strength that they value so highly as meat. After hours of struggle, they loop a rope around his nose ring, and lead him with seven of his brothers to a train station miles away. That will be the last time he sees the ranch where he lived his whole life. It is the cusp of winter, in 1939, and the young steer dies hundreds of miles from home, with the smell of blood in his nostrils. Winter passes, and the young oak drops its leaves again. The year is 1940, and the family of robins have all come back for the spring - the parents of the clutch, and half the clutch from last year. They all make new homes nearby one another, and the young oak's branches are finally strong enough to hold a nest. A young robin, the son of the first mated pair, makes his nest in its branches, singing loudly for any female who might hear him. One responds, and they nest together for the spring. The year is 1940, and it is summer again. The young robin and his mate had two clutches laid in the branches of the oak tree, the first of which was eaten by a crow. The second was successful, and they flit even now from branch to branch. For the robins, this is a land of plenty, with many worms and insects for them to eat. The year is 1940, and it is autumn once again. Another squirrel seeks acorns in the branches of the parent tree. More young bulls, steers, and heifers graze nearby. More are culled from the herd, and more will be born next spring. The robins have flown south - they will return.